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Drippings
Save any scraps or pieces of fat; cut into half-inch cubes; put in a pan and cover with cold water. Place in a moderate oven or on the back of the stove and cook slowly until the scraps are all brown and the water evaporated; cool slightly; strain and set away to cool.
Several slices of raw potato put with the fat will aid in the clarifying.
All kinds of fats are good for drippings except mutton fat, turkey fat and fat from smoked meats.
This is wet rendering — fat cooked with water so it cannot scorch before it melts. The method still works exactly as written; only the vessel and the storage advice need updating.
- The hinge: keep it lowThe water is there to hold the temperature at or near boiling until the fat has released, so the fat never browns and taints. Do not rush it by raising the heat; once the water is gone the pan climbs fast and the cracklings can burn in a minute or two.
- "A moderate oven"In period usage this generally means somewhere around 350F, which is the top of the useful range here. 275-300F is safer for an unattended rendering and gives a cleaner, paler fat.
- "The back of the stove"On a wood or coal range this was the cool corner, roughly a bare simmer. On a modern hob it is the smallest burner at the lowest setting, with the lid ajar.
- How longExpect 1 1/2 to 3 hours for a couple of pounds of scraps, depending on how finely they are cut. The signal is the one the recipe gives: no more bubbling or hissing from steam, scraps shrunk and browned, fat clear.
- Cut sizeHalf-inch cubes are the minimum; smaller pieces or a coarse grind render faster and more completely. Cold or part-frozen fat cuts far more neatly than fat at room temperature.
- The potato trickRaw potato slices were said to absorb stray meat particles and some odour as they cook; the effect is traditional rather than demonstrated. They also add moisture — fish them out with the scraps before straining, and do not count on them to replace straining through muslin or a coffee filter.
- The excluded fatsMutton fat sets hard and waxy and carries a strong flavour into everything; turkey fat and fat from smoked or cured meats bring flavours that will not stay in the background. Beef suet, pork fat and chicken fat are the intended candidates.
- Storage, where modern practice differsThe original assumes a cool larder and a crock. Rendered fat with any meat residue in it will go rancid and can support spoilage; strain it well, keep it covered in the refrigerator for a few months, or freeze it for longer. Discard it if it smells sharp or paint-like.
- Yield and the cracklingsA pound of trimmed fat gives roughly a cup or more of clear drippings, depending on how lean the scraps are. The strained-out scraps, salted, are cracklings — good in cornbread or scattered over greens.
Rendering the trimmings was not thrift for its own sake but basic supply: before shelf-stable vegetable shortening was in every pantry, the fat a household cooked with was largely fat it had saved itself, from the roast, the fowl and the butcher's trimmings. The wet-rendering method described here, with water to buffer the heat, is the more forgiving of the two standard techniques, and the raw-potato clarifier is a repeated kitchen practice of the period rather than anything a chemist prescribed. Fat saving persisted well past the era of these loose-leaf books; American households were still being asked to collect and turn in kitchen fats during the Second World War, when the glycerine in them was wanted for munitions.