[Sca-cooks] beef fat, was meat sale

[Randall Cook of Northpass]

> Cracklins are the remaining connective tissue, which, having been ground,
> will be rather fibrous- you remove that from the fat. It's deep fat fried
> and crispy when done right, and a bit of a taste treat for those of us who
> like that sort of thing- rather like pork rinds.

If you do this with chicken fat, the resulting fat is called "schmaltz", and
the cracklings are called "gribenes". My grandmother, z"lt ("zachur latov" -
may she be remembered for goodness), added onion to the rendering fat, so
the schmaltz had an oniony flavor, and the onion bits became part of the
gribenes. She always did this during the day before the first Passover
Seder, and when it was cool, my grandfather, z"lt, would grind the gribenes
into the chopped liver. My sister and I would stand and wait, because we
were each allowed one small spoonful of the gribenes straight from the bowl.
:-) Salty, crunchy, slightly sweet from the onion - I've been tempted to
render my own fat just to get gribenes to munch on. And I've never had a
plate of matzo brie (rhymes with "sky") that tasted right since she stopped
rendering her own fat.

It can be hard, remembering good things about my grandmother; she was a
difficult, unpleasant, desperately unhappy lady... but there's always
Passover.

Randy

****************************************************
Randall Cook of Northpass (soon to be "of Sudentur")
     (formerly Avraham haRofeh)
     (mka Randy Goldberg MD)
RandomTag: (A)bort, (R)etry, (F)ake power surge?



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