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ghee and schmaltz
2013-11-14 21:52A while back I bought a jar of ghee, Indian clarified butter. I've been less than stunned. Even when used for cooking eggs it leaves an odd taste I'm not thrilled with, and when I use it as a room temperature butter it tastes even worse. Clarification seems to have removed key butter flavor.
Hmm, WP says ghee may be cooked long enough to caramelize and pick up a somewhat nutty flavor. I suppose I could try again with a different attitude than "why isn't it butter?"
OTOH, I've started pouring off bacon fat, then also chicken and sausage fat. Old schmaltz, chicken fat, tastes grate. Eat-it-out-of-the-can great even, though the fact that it's loaded with fried chicken seasonings skews the curve on that one. I did get around to wondering why schmaltz is a Jewish thing, and Wikipedia quickly made it make sense.
CUlinary fats:
olive oil: traditional to Mediterranean people (cf. Channukah); hard to find in medieval Germany-Poland.
sesame oil: apparently used in Babylonia. Also hard to find.
lard: just no. very not kosher.
butter: probably usable for vegetables, but not for meat under Expanded Rabbinical kosher.
beef and lamb fat, aka suet, or tallow when processed for storage: mostly chelev, fats from sacrificial animals, and not for consumption
Speak to the Children of Israel, saying: You shall not eat any fat of an ox, sheep, or goat. The fat of carrion and the fat of an animal with a fatal disease or injury, may be used for any work, but you shall not eat it.
—Leviticus 7:23-24
Guess what's left? Chicken and geese.
WP says foie gras has Egyptian and Roman roots, but that medieval Jews may have re-invented it as a a by-product of fattening geese for general fat production. Others think they retained the secret all along. Either way, the rest of Europe got a taste for it from them.
'Gentile gastronomes began appreciating fattened goose liver, which they could buy in the local Jewish ghetto of their cities. In 1570, Bartolomeo Scappi, chef de cuisine to Pope Pius V, published his cookbook Opera, wherein he describes that "the liver of [a] domestic goose raised by the Jews is of extreme size and weighs [between] two and three pounds."'
I'm just amused that this classic French dish is, in a sense, Jewish. If you ever meet a French anti-semite, annoy them with it. Unless they care about animal welfare, in which case, don't.
Hmm, WP says ghee may be cooked long enough to caramelize and pick up a somewhat nutty flavor. I suppose I could try again with a different attitude than "why isn't it butter?"
OTOH, I've started pouring off bacon fat, then also chicken and sausage fat. Old schmaltz, chicken fat, tastes grate. Eat-it-out-of-the-can great even, though the fact that it's loaded with fried chicken seasonings skews the curve on that one. I did get around to wondering why schmaltz is a Jewish thing, and Wikipedia quickly made it make sense.
CUlinary fats:
olive oil: traditional to Mediterranean people (cf. Channukah); hard to find in medieval Germany-Poland.
sesame oil: apparently used in Babylonia. Also hard to find.
lard: just no. very not kosher.
butter: probably usable for vegetables, but not for meat under Expanded Rabbinical kosher.
beef and lamb fat, aka suet, or tallow when processed for storage: mostly chelev, fats from sacrificial animals, and not for consumption
Speak to the Children of Israel, saying: You shall not eat any fat of an ox, sheep, or goat. The fat of carrion and the fat of an animal with a fatal disease or injury, may be used for any work, but you shall not eat it.
—Leviticus 7:23-24
Guess what's left? Chicken and geese.
WP says foie gras has Egyptian and Roman roots, but that medieval Jews may have re-invented it as a a by-product of fattening geese for general fat production. Others think they retained the secret all along. Either way, the rest of Europe got a taste for it from them.
'Gentile gastronomes began appreciating fattened goose liver, which they could buy in the local Jewish ghetto of their cities. In 1570, Bartolomeo Scappi, chef de cuisine to Pope Pius V, published his cookbook Opera, wherein he describes that "the liver of [a] domestic goose raised by the Jews is of extreme size and weighs [between] two and three pounds."'
I'm just amused that this classic French dish is, in a sense, Jewish. If you ever meet a French anti-semite, annoy them with it. Unless they care about animal welfare, in which case, don't.