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Beef Suet for Piecrust
Shred some suet and clear it from all skin and fibre, put it into a basin, cover it with boiling water, and place it on a hot plate, or near the fire. When melted, pass it through a strainer into another vessel containing boiling water, and when cold, pierce the fat and let the water run out. If any sediment remain it will be found on the underside of the caked fat, and can be scraped off with a knife. Suet thus prepared, with the addition of a little lard or oil, can be worked into the consistency of butter, and may be used with success in making crusts for meat pies. Dripping may be cleansed in the same manner. Its adaptation to many purposes will depend on the management in clarifying, etc.
This is a preparation, not a dish: a method for rendering raw beef suet into a clean, plastic fat that behaves like butter in pastry. Everything depends on keeping the heat low.
- The hinge: gentle heat onlyThe suet must melt, not fry. Once fat gets hot enough to brown it takes on a scorched, tallowy flavour that no amount of straining will remove. A "hot plate" here is the flat warming area of a coal range; the modern equivalent is the lowest possible burner setting, with the basin standing in water. The recipe specifies no oven and no temperature.
- Why the water is thereThe boiling water both moderates the temperature and washes the fat. Water-soluble impurities and blood residues dissolve into it, and the clean fat sets as a cake on top. Pouring the melted fat into a second vessel of boiling water repeats the wash.
- Piercing the cakeOnce fully cold — overnight in the refrigerator is easiest — puncture the set disc of fat and drain the grey water out from beneath. Scrape the underside clean, then pat it dry; trapped water shortens keeping time considerably.
- Getting the suet clean firstBeef kidney suet comes wrapped in papery membrane and threaded with fibre. Chill it hard before shredding; cold suet grates and pulls apart cleanly, while suet at room temperature smears.
- The lard or oilClarified suet on its own sets hard and can crack when rubbed into flour. The added lard or oil acts as a plasticiser rather than a flavouring; the recipe specifies only "a little", so add it sparingly until the fat reaches a butter-like consistency. Work it in while the suet is soft but not liquid.
- StrainingThe recipe says only "pass it through a strainer" and does not specify the mesh. A doubled layer of muslin will catch fine sediment, and straining is easiest while the fat is hot and thin.
- Yield and keepingA pound of raw suet yields somewhat less than a pound of clarified fat, the loss depending on how much membrane and water it carried. Refrigerated in a sealed jar it keeps for several weeks; frozen, for months. Traditional suet crust is worked at about one part fat to two parts flour by weight.
- Modern shortcutPacket shredded suet is sold dusted with flour to keep the shreds separate and goes straight into the flour, though it is shredded raw suet rather than clarified fat. This method is worth doing when you have raw suet from a butcher, or want the flavour of your own dripping in a pie crust.
Clarifying fat was a general household skill, applied to suet, dripping, poultry fat and anything else the kitchen produced -- the page itself extends the method to dripping. In a period when the fat from every roast was saved, rendering under water was one recognised way to make it keep and to give it a neutral flavour, the same washing principle behind clean lard or ghee. Beef suet was a traditional British pastry fat for savoury pies, puddings and mincemeat, its high melting point keeping the fat solid until the crust is well into the oven, giving the open, slightly crumbly texture of a suet crust rather than the flaky layers of butter pastry. The closing note that "its adaptation to many purposes will depend on the management in clarifying" is the honest heart of the entry: the same suet, badly rendered, gives a crust that tastes of tallow.