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About Clarifying Frying Fat
A number of articles have now been described in this column that have to be fried by being immersed in hot fat, enough at least to cover them. As it may be a long time before they will have to be mentioned again, a few explanations here come in place.
When the clear fat--possibly several inches deep--is skimmed off the top of the soup stock boiler and strained into a frying kettle, it looks clear enough and ready for frying. But in fact it contains a good deal of water and gelatinous matter that must be got rid of.
When it is set on the range it soon boils rapidly, and inexperienced persons are apt to think that it is then ready to receive the articles to be fried, but if they are dropped in at that stage they only boil all away to a mush, and perhaps the grease foams over on to the range. If, however, the grease is allowed to continue boiling--it may take an hour--the water will all be expelled and the gelatinous matters, or gravy, will all be found coated over the bottom of the kettle. The grease is then motionless and will soon begin to smoke--it is hotter than boiling water. If now poured off into a clean saucepan, it is clarified and ready for frying in, and may be set away to get cold and used whenever wanted without any more preparation. If, instead of pouring it into a clean saucepan, the articles to be fried are put into the grease in the same kettle it was boiled down in, they will dissolve more or less of the sediment on the bottom, the grease will become turgid and foam over and take fire, and instead of the articles browning they are apt to stick on the bottom and the whole contents acquire a burned and smoky taste. Hence the necessity of clarifying all fat that is saved from the cooking of meats.
When meats are baking in the oven, all the fat that may be taken out as long as there is water in the pan is in precisely the same condition as that taken from the soup stock, and contains meat gravy. It is then what is called drippings.
But when the meat has become browned and the gravy in the pan dried and browned too, then all the fat that remains is clarified and will set like tallow when cold; it can be poured from the pan into a saucepan direct, and used to fry with immediately.
When kidney fat, or other fat pieces of meat are rendered down in a meat pan, they should be treated just like the baked meats; cooked with a little water in the pan at first, but allowed to dry out and let the glaze be fixed to the bottom before the clear grease is poured off.
Articles properly made and properly fried and drained after frying have so little grease left about them that it is scarcely appreciated; but what they are liable to have about them are sickly flavors of the nature of vegetable oils that the frying fat may have gathered from other vessels. The bay leaf, onion, celery and herbs; the cloves, mace, lemon, or whatever is put in the soup are fine whilst they are living flavors, but their essential oils carried over in the fat to the frying saucepan are not so pleasant. Therefore the clear fat should be saved before any of these seasonings are put in the stock pot. An orange or pineapple fritter may have had the fruit soaked in good wine and the batter made of the lightest kind, but if fried in fat from stuffed pork or wild fowl, the first thing the tongue will be conscious of will be the ghosts of departed onions. The table may be furnished expensively, and the bill-of-fore be full of French terms, yet if these little matters be thought too trivial there will be an indescribable something that will detract from the pleasure of eating at your table. If fat containing oil of onions must be used, keep it for frying onions in. Beef fat is well nigh tasteless, and is good alone; see that nothing goes into the rendering pan that will injure it.