Terrible for the arteries. No one uses schmaltz anymore. At least none of the people I know. It was used in my childhood and fell out of favor. I used to use it for chopped liver and switched to mayo and broth and then stopped using liver altogether. No one I know would eat liver or schmaltz bc of cholesterol.

I was smoking a chicken. Lot's of schmaltz.

Schmaltz from Smoked and marinaded chicken is absolutely heavenly.

But I threw it all out. The smoked chicken was so delicious, I wanted to live longer to enjoy more. :-)

dcarch

This post was edited by dcarch on Fri, Sep 19, 14 at 23:16

We don't ever use it, either. I am going to see what Ruhlmann has to say, though.

Well, yes, I do. Usually chicken fat rendered with onion. There are some things that vegetable shortening just won't do, and some foods where vegetable shortening just tastes awful. It's just animal fat. I would never put butter (animal fat) on meat, which is a common way restaurants do it because if the meat is any good it doesn't need it, but schmaltz would be a better choice if one were going to do it.

I don't add schmaltz to my turkeys because they have enough of their own, and I trim away schmaltz rather than adding it. I don't use butter or mayonnaise (also partially animal fat) on my birds either. I get the best quality birds and braise them in the cheapest wine (Two Buck Chuck (now $2.49) which is quite palatable enough). They always come out beautifully. OTOH, if I had a dry old bird to roast I wouldn't have an issue with using schmaltz.

The good for you oils lose their good at cooking temperatures. We've had discussions on this forum about how animal fat is potentially better at heat. Myself, I figure for the way we live, being parsimonious with all fats is a good idea and I do a lot of trimming and skimming. But there's nothing intrinsically bad about schmaltz any more than there is with butter. It's just a matter of using it wisely and not too generously.

OTOH, I made parve (vegan) matzah balls for Passover this year and added seasoning to make up for the lack of schmaltz. They came out fine and the pescatarians were thrilled. :)

I use schmaltz as well as lard. Much of the old info on these fats has proven incorrect and based on bad research, and doctors who are on the cutting edge recognize that. (And cholesterol has nothing to do with heart health--check out The Great Cholesterol Myth book). And in reference to all cholesterol in food, it has nothing whatsoever to do with the cholesterol in your body--note the changes now advised in eating eggs.

Of course, you want those fats to come from animals raised in a healthy manner, not from industrial farms.

Used in the same modest amounts you would use any fat, it's healthy and much safer than oils loaded with Omega 6s.
I find it impossible to believe that any food that has been part of the human diet for 100s if not many 1000s of years could be bad for us.

"----I find it impossible to believe that any food that has been part of the human diet for 100s if not many 1000s of years could be bad for us.---"

I can't say you are wrong, because I have not done much research on the topic.

I visit a few BBQ/smokers forums. Cooking competitions (throwdowns, cook-offs) are very popular. They also have frequent member get togethers.

When I see the pictures from those events, I see 95% obesity. Those are the people who wrap bacon on all foods.

Also, it is well known that people from areas where low-fat diets are common, they are skinnier and healthier.

I enjoy cream, duck fat, lard, butter, bacon, pork belly ------- but infrequently.

I made clotted cream last week. Amazing on home made bread.

I will be using schmalz to make a few seasonal goodies to take to a few invitations.

dcarch

I just coincidentally stumbled upon this opinion piece. I only skimmed it so far.

Eating fat helps heart health and weight loss, concluded a widely reported clinical trial this week.

The result did not surprise close followers of nutrition science since it echoed a decade's worth of similar studies. But, unlike its predecessors, the new trial was not ignored by nutrition experts and the media; that was the real news. It's a sign that a half-century-long fear of dietary fat might finally be melting away, exactly the breakthrough needed to start healing the nation's health."

Here is a link that might be useful: CNN article

I use it in matzoh balls, and I have also used it for making chicken gravy. It is never a major ingredient in anything that I make, and I only use it when I happen to have it on hand. When I make chicken stock, I skim it off the stock after it has cooled and solidified, and then I store it in the freezer.

Lars

The only time I use it is when making homemade egg noodles for chicken pot pie - the stewed variety with large square noodles, not the kind with a baked pie crust.

I mix flour, salt, eggs, and the chicken fat before rolling them out. It gives the noodles an extra dash of flavor and tenderness.

On the rare occasions that I roast a goose, I render the excess fat ripped out from it before roasting and also remove and clarify the large volume of fat released during roasting. I freeze it in tablespoon-sized blobs to use for frying potatoes.

There are many suggestions for using schmaltz as a substitute for heavily rationed butter in sweets in my collection of WWII era cooking booklets, although I have never tried them.

Foas, I am a low carber not low fat. I just watch which fats. As a kid I ate schmaltz with chicken cracklings on bread. None of my grandparents lived past their fifties. I eat a little butter on bread, guiltily. For me, with bad genes, I will choose a little butter over a little schmaltz. Working so far for me. It's the bread, too.

FOAS, that CNN articles fails to explain the fact that monks, vegetarians are skinnier and healthier.

dcarch

Yeah, but Frenchmen soaked in butter and beef also are skinnier and healthier...

I think the key is to eat normally and wisely, not to deem any one ingredient a monster. Remember when cookies were standardly the size of a silver dollar? Now they're the size of saucers! A single old style cookie, with sugar, white flour (i.e., sugar), and butter, and not too much else, isn't going to screw you up. One a day won't if it doesn't push out the clichéd apple. It's really not about fruit instead of little cookie, but not forgoing the fruit to eat a cookie.

"----Yeah, but Frenchmen soaked in butter and beef also are skinnier and healthier..."

And they chain-smoke. May be it's the wine.

Actually they don't live as long as a few other countries.

They do eat less than us.

dcarch

I always have a jar of chicken fat in the fridge, and one of bacon fat. I use them to enhance the flavor of certain foods, like the egg noodles already mentioned. Just like many other flavoring agents: handy when needed, but used judiciously.