Cooking Classes

3.12.09

How to Render Duck Fat


I can't believe I am watching the Victoria's Secret fashion show or next great angel or whatever!  But I am up to my wrists in duck fat so I can't click the channel changer at the moment.

So to the duck!  Rendering the fat (which I'm sure none of those VS girls will ever enjoy) is easy.  These pictures are taken after 5 minutes and then after 1 hour.

The great thing about rendering your own duck fat is that you end up with a batch of cracklings - delicious to snack on, sprinkled with salt.

Take the skin and fat from one duck, avoiding the tail and neck areas.  I actually threw in the entire carcass.  I removed it when I thought the fat from it was probably melted into the pot.
Cut the skin and fat into medium sized pieces and put them into a heavy bottomed pot or pan.  Add water to cover and simmer over medium heat until all the water has evaporated and the skin pieces are crisp and have released all their fat.  That may take about 2 hours.  Be careful not to burn the fat.

Strain the clear golden fat through a sieve or coffee filter.  Store the fat in a sealed container in the refrigerator or freezer.


Then, take this one more step and after draining off all the fat, continue to cook the skin to make cracklings.  Sprinkle with sea salt.  They are to die for!
 

2 comments:

  1. I always "recycle" my duck fat when I do confit and end up each time with more and more fat. The only problem, it's getting very salty. Because of the curing of the confit. I do rinse the legs prior to cooking in the fat...but it still ends up too salty now. Any suggestions?

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is my first time rendering fat and making confit. I, also, rinsed the duck before cooking in the fat. I think that next time I will use Kosher salt for the curing. It is less 'salty' than regular salt. Also, I won't be using this fat over again for making more confit. It will be fine for other sauteing.

    ReplyDelete

I appreciate your comment! Please visit often.