Rendering Suet
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Cut the suet into small pieces.
Soak the suet in water for one day, changing the water once.
Drain the suet and place it in an iron kettle.
Add ½ teacup of skim milk for every pound of suet.
Render and strain
Cook slowly until boiling ceases.
Carefully pour off the fat after it has partly cooled.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Suet
- Its fat melts during slow cooking and becomes the rendered fat that is poured off.
- Skim milk
- Added during cooking, it helps the rendering process and is later separated from the fat.
The step that matters
Carefully pour off the fat after it has partly cooled.. Pouring while the fat is still very hot can splash and burn, and pouring after it has fully cooled can make it harder to separate cleanly from the liquid beneath. Waiting until it has partly cooled lets the fat stay fluid while the water and milk settle below it.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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