So, what do you do with rendered chicken fat?

[eridani]

Before retirement, I bought canned stocks and just the parts of the chicken I wanted to use for a meal. This week I bought a whole chicken and made some stock and cooked all the parts that weren't breast from a whole chicken. (Fried up the breasts and served them with green beens/almonds.) Lots of stock and cooked chicken meat--I'll freeze some and use the rest to make tortilla soup. And there's a whole lot of solidified chicken fat that I removed after chilling.

Thought I might try to make pate from the liver and etcceteras stuffed in the cavity, using some of the fat instead of butter. But there is way more fat than I can use for that. Do you just throw it away, or is there something else useful to do with it?

[bearfan454]

1. I put it on the dog's dogfood.

They go apeshit.

[Dora]

2. I used it for risotto once. Amazing.

I also use it to saute the onion/celery/carrots for soups.

[TreasonousBastard]

3. You have "schmaltz" which is highly...

favored in Eastern European kosher cooking as an alternative to butter or lard, but isn't all that good for you. Highly saturated and calorific while not really tasting all that good anyway, it's better tossed or left out for the birds. Having said that, give it a shot for some stir fry on occasion-- it might do for frying what chicken stock does for simmering.

(I have had sandwiches in kosher delis where schmaltz was used instead of butter or mayonnaise and they didn't quite make me gag, but I won't do that again.)

[Warpy]

5. Using it half and half with an unsaturated oil

takes some of the curse off it and it does add a little depth of flavor to stir fries, fried potatoes, and other stuff.

However, I'd much rather have rendered duck fat than schmaltz any day.

The cats liked it back when I ate meat and used to get it once in a while.

[TreasonousBastard]

7. Yeah! Duck and goose fat...

are part of that healthy heart French diet. Taste good, too.

Don't have time to goggle it up right now, but I had heard years ago that the waterbird fat is chemically similar to olive oil and has many of the same benefits. Since their fat is meant for insulation and flotation, rather than chicken fat which is, well, just flab, it makes sense that the composition would be much different.

[catnhatnh]

11. The schmaltz is the best part....

...the trick is to remove most (not all) of the clear fat. Adding schmaltz to a standard boiled chicken stock is like adding a turbocharger to a V-8 engine...yep, souped up to a new level. After defatting the small remaining amount of fat is similar to the "golden egg" in Mrs. Grass's soup...it leaves small globules of flavor on the surface. I haven't yet tried adding it to dumplings in place of shortening, but I hope to soon.

[TreasonousBastard]

12. Well, I'm not about to argue about taste, and if you like it...

that's great. A lot of people do.

It's just not very appealing to me.

(And I already have more than enough ways to get my calories from fat.)

[catnhatnh]

13. I wish I could find any fat I didn't love N/T

[hippywife]

4. Dogfood. n/t

[The empressof all]

6. I was actually going to check with Whole Foods to buy some

I've been craving chopped liver and thought I'd make it at Thanksgiving. It takes a big glob of the Schmaltz to make it authentic. I don't have the time to make it myself. You're lucky. You can use that chicken fat just like you would Olive Oil. It's great for pan frying.

The chopped liver however is IMO the most glorious way to use it up.

[Gormy Cuss]

9. Chopped liver isn't the same without schmaltz.

I don't eat organ meats much these days but if I were to eat chopped liver, I'd expect a good dollop of schmaltz in it.
:9

[eridani]

10. Yes, I looked up some Jewish traitional cooking

Apparently you can use it for matzoh balls as well.

[noamnety]

8. With beef fat

you can mix it with birdseed and use it in a suet feeder. I would imagine the chicken fat would be the same.