Fat from brisket trimming

[adam clyde]

Alright folks. After a full brisket, you get like 1-2 pounds of trimmed fat. the stuff is beautiful, really. Just pure beef fat.

anyhow, what do you guys do with it? I'm not the suet bird feeder kind of guy. I love pork lard, but had never tried rendering beef lard.

But, seeing all this nice stuff, I chopped it into smaller pieces and rendered the whole bit. I'm now left with about 3 cups of a great pure white beef lard (tallow, right?). Anyhow, I posted this question on another board, but I think the answers here will be more interesting.

So, what do you guys do with your brisket trimmings? throw away? render? If you render, what do you do with it? This lard is actually better, more firm, than most pork lard I render, which might make it better for tamales, though the flavor would be different. Tallow candles? French fries? Lard sculptures?

by the way, I really can't believe that soap used to be made from this stuff. Something about washing in beef fat just seems so, well, unappetizing. No wonder people got eaten by bears more often back then.

Curious on your thoughts.

 

[David Savona]

If memory serves, the stuff you have was the secret for McDonald's french fries when I was a kid. Back before they started frying in 100 percent veggie oil, they used beef tallow, or at least part beef tallow. I think you have the magic ingredient for incredible french fries.

After that, who knows? Maybe you can use it to sweat onions for a batch of chili.

 

[K Kruger]

I don't use it that often. It's good in recipes where beef is featured--one finds it in several Argentine beef empanada recipes--so it might work well for beef tamales. I prefer olive oil or duck fat for fries but it works there as well. It is not as delicate as leaf lard (my favorite of the red meat fats) but you could use it as a replacement and see what you think.