Butter, Lard, and Beef Tallow - And when to use them

[WilliamDeLaPole]

Recently, I've been trying not to waste the rendered beef fat from my steak dinners. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that bread works well with beef tallow.

Not a fan of eggs cooked in tallow, but lard is fine. Frying potatoes in tallow is a miracle. Frying chicken as well. Lard is better for fish.

Also started buying butter again, the real kind. Wanted to try upping my vegetable game.

This isn't meant to be a discussion about whether or not they are healthy, just curious how you guys use them in your recipes.

 

[CallmeCicada]

If were talking about versatility then it's butter. French cooking is a testament to this. Not only is it useful for cooking as is, but making clarified and brown butter (my god I love brown butter) are amazing for cooking almost anything. I don't think I need to mention how useful butter is for baking but you get it. Animal fat are great for cooking, but they arent able to be used in baking like butter. So in versatility butter wins.

In my cooking when I sauté vegetables adding some tallow with olive oil is amazing, a lot of people say to use bacon fat, but my preference is lamb tallow.

 

[WilliamDeLaPole]

If were talking about versatility then it's butter. French cooking is a testament to this. Not only is it useful for cooking as is, but making clarified and brown butter (my god I love brown butter) are amazing for cooking almost anything. I don't think I need to mention how useful butter is for baking but you get it. Animal fat are great for cooking, but they arent able to be used in baking like butter. So in versatility butter wins.

In my cooking when I sauté vegetables adding some tallow with olive oil is amazing, a lot of people say to use bacon fat, but my preference is lamb tallow.

I tried cooking pork in clarified butter and it was absolutely delicious. Ghee I'm not a fan of, it doesn't seem to taste good with anything.

Animal fats are used in baking, particularly with making pie crusts, but they can be used in making cakes and pastries too. Although, I briefly tried finding a recipe for a soufflé made with lard or tallow but that doesn't seem to exist. Now I'm curious how different the taste and texture would be for something like that.

I never considered mixing tallow and olive oil. Will have to try that, thanks.

 

[Mukhrani]

Suet and lard are used in some old savory pudding recipes. A lot of Chinese baking recipes use lard as well - butter doesn't really seem to be a thing over there. Personally I'm a butter nut but I've had luck cooking with the others as well. Aside from grapeseed oil, olive oil, and coconut oil they're my go-to cooking oils.

 

[CallmeCicada]

Animal fats are used in baking, particularly with making pie crusts, but they can be used in making cakes and pastries too. Although, I briefly tried finding a recipe for a soufflé made with lard or tallow but that doesn't seem to exist. Now I'm curious how different the taste and texture would be for something like that.

When I said baking let me be clear that I also meant pastries. Yes you may be able to substitute butter for certain bread and pie recipes. However, the water content in butter is very important to achieve the texture of certain baked good i.e. puff pastries where the evaporation of the water in the butter and dough mixture causes the dough to expand small air pockets in the baking process. . Substituting lard for butter simply would not work for many popular pastries. My apologies if I wasn't clear.

 

[Rogue AI]

There was a time when I was trying to perfect my duck recipes and I had a lot of rendered fat. It's really good for frying stuff, especially french fries, making confit, and baking Yorkshire pudding. It's also a great way of defeating the purpose of eating healthy vegetables by cooking them in fat.

 

[CallmeCicada]

making confit

How exactly do you use it to make confit? I usually just use olive oil, do you replace the olive oil 1:1 or do you use a mixture.

 

[WilliamDeLaPole]

Chinese baking recipes use lard

This seems like a nice rabbit hole to dive in to.

Aside from grapeseed oil, olive oil, and coconut oil they're my go-to cooking oils.

Haven't tried those yet aside from olive oil, but I really love avocado oil for making sauces/seasoning and crepes.

However, the water content in butter is very important to achieve the texture of certain baked good i.e. puff pastries where the evaporation of the water in the butter and dough mixture causes the dough to expand small air pockets in the baking process.

Yeah, figured it was something along those lines. I've only tried baking a very tiny bit, and never anything that had texture complexity. So definitely butter wins in the versatility department like you said.

It's also a great way of defeating the purpose of eating healthy vegetables by cooking them in fat.

Shhhh, don't remind us.

making confit

I don't know if this counts as confit, but I've been wanting to try slow cooking potatoes in garlic butter. The way potatoes absorb fat flavor is amazing.

Also have heard a lot of good things about duck fat and wanted to try it, but it's hard to find out here. Lamb fat is nasty, can't stand it.

 

[Rogue AI]

How exactly do you use it to make confit? I usually just use olive oil, do you replace the olive oil 1:1 or do you use a mixture.

I use enough fat to cover the legs. I've never tried using oil to make it.

 

[JoseRaulChupacabra]

I mostly use pork fat on my cast iron. Every time I cook chicken thighs, I smoke some on the surface of the skillet and it leaves a nice smooth non stick surface that is more durable than what I get with vegetable oils. I then let the chicken cook on its own fat.

I mostly use butter for sauces or bread. I don't really do any sort of baking.

Beef fat I tend not to keep around because I only get a lot of these when making pasta sauces, and I let all that stay in the sauce for extra guilty richness.

 

[Mukhrani]

Haven't tried those yet aside from olive oil, but I really love avocado oil for making sauces/seasoning and crepes.

I use avocado oil too sometime. Grapeseed oil is great for baking, I always substitute it in when a recipe calls for oil. It's very healthy and also has a very mild flavor to it. Coconut oil is good for stirfrying, olive oil for cooking on lower heats.

 

[xn--mck1c]

Frying potatoes in tallow is a miracle.

Guess what McDonald's made their fries with before some faggot ruined it?

 

[Judas Connor Moon]

Dawg! Budda Dawg!
I put da budda on the dawg!
Budda Dawg!
The dawg with da budda!
Budda Dawg!
Put the budda on the dawg!
Budda dawg!

 

[Cherry Eyed Hamster]

I never used tallow much except for one thing: French fries. Oh my lord is tallow the best fat for getting an incredible-tasting French fry. Apparently the fries at McDonald’s used to be cooked in tallow until 1990 when they replaced it with vegetable oil. I bet they were delicious.

 

[NoReturn]

Guess what McDonald's made their fries with before some faggot ruined it?

That faggot's name is Phil Sokolof; a millionaire businessman who started lobbying for seed oils in food after he had a heart attack. He died of heart failure himself in 2004.

Spoiler: And to those of you who always ask

 

[WilliamDeLaPole]

I mostly use butter for sauces or bread. I don't really do any sort of baking.

Butter and strawberry preserve on a toasted English muffin is my go to. Butter and cream cheese on a toasted raisin bagel is great too. I used to live next to a bagel shop that made the nicest tasting butters for their bread. Have no idea how they did it, but I miss going there.

Guess what McDonald's made their fries with before some faggot ruined it?

Reading about this was the reason I attempted using tallow. Really is a shame what we were robbed of.


Unfortunately, my parents bought into the "margarine is healthier than butter" back in the day, and that's what I was raised on. I used to hate the taste of butter because of it.


Speaking of butter, I started making corn flatbread for the first time recently, and now I'm obsessed. The more butter, the better it tastes.

Equal parts 100% whole wheat flour and fine cornmeal

Just enough milk that it's thick and globs off the mixer.

Enough salted butter that every part of the dough has a nice chunk. Use cold butter, and crush and blend into the mix until everything is smooth.

Preheat some lard in a skillet, wait till it gets hot, put in spoonfuls of dough around the edges first, let it sit for a few seconds, then put the rest in the middle. Cover the pot with a lid and wait till the edges are extra crispy. Also good to swish the fluids around and get some of it on the top of the bread. Flip it and let the other side get crispy. Let it rest in the pot off the heat to absorb the remainder of the butter.

Honestly tastes great by itself, but goes nicely with vegetable stew. It works with water too, but milk is more filling and I like the texture better. I prefer it as a full pancake, rather than smaller pastries, but smaller ones are better for work snacks.


Also tested homemade pasta using tallow instead of olive oil to lubricate the dough while it rests. No noticeable difference in taste or texture, but it's a nice way to get rid of unwanted tallow.

 

[CallmeCicada]

The more butter, the better it tastes.

I wish you luck in your buttery adventures. Recently started making French scrambled eggs again and I have been getting them perfect. They come out so so gooey that they make your lips stick together.

 

[Iron Jaguar]

I was pleasantly surprised to find out that bread works well with beef tallow

This is a very traditional English, working class dish.

Lard is better for fish.

Try ghee.

 

[AnOminous]

Also tested homemade pasta using tallow instead of olive oil to lubricate the dough while it rests. No noticeable difference in taste or texture, but it's a nice way to get rid of unwanted tallow.

I feel like I'm playing Dwarf Fortress irl when I do substitutions like that. It seems every DF game ends up with you having insane amounts of tallow left over from butchering various creatures. Bat tallow, rat tallow, cat tallow, yak tallow, forgotten beast tallow, sometimes even beef tallow. I think it was the phrase "unwanted tallow" that brought on this spergpost.

 

[WonderWino]

I feel like I'm playing Dwarf Fortress irl when I do substitutions like that. It seems every DF game ends up with you having insane amounts of tallow left over from butchering various creatures. Bat tallow, rat tallow, cat tallow, yak tallow, forgotten beast tallow, sometimes even beef tallow. I think it was the phrase "unwanted tallow" that brought on this spergpost.

Forgotten beast tallow sounds like something the health inspector would find in the kitchen of some extra seedy burger king in the hood

Recently, I've been trying not to waste the rendered beef fat from my steak dinners. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that bread works well with beef tallow.

It also works rather well with lard and is my usual choice when making sourdough maslin bread. Gives it a nice thick chewy crust while keeping it pretty light inside. Granted it also puts the calorie count through the roof, but that can be a good thing. Its always a great bread to have around if you're doing something labor intensive outdoors, in cold weather or out hunting

I'd add another fat to the list - moose fat. All of it including the tallow and suet. Its fantastic for frying with, though not exactly an easy thing to get ahold of for most people. Bear fat is highly prized for baking as well. I mean good quality bear not some bear that was fucking around human settlements eating garbage or fish. You want it from a bear that was living out in the woods with a high percentage of its diet made up of berries. The fat has a very neutral flavor but makes for extremely flakey crusts when used properly. Quite a few pastry chefs prize it. Oddly enough bear fat is also drinkable when rendered without making you puke your guts out and has been used that way in emergency situations for centuries