Fat that is used for cooking from cattle or sheep is known as suet or tallow. Cooking fat from chickens, ducks or geese is known as schmaltz. Bacon grease is sometimes used in culinary applications for its rich and smoky flavor and texture.
How is Beef Tallow Different than Beef Suet?
Tallow is rendered beef fat, but what is the relationship of beef fat to beef suet? Suet is a specific type of beef fat that is removed from around the internal organs of a cow.
The best suet is the fat that is removed from around the kidneys of the cow. Once rendered, this suet is called tallow. (Watch my explanatory video for more information.)
Tallow is an excellent fat for cooking or baking for many reasons:
- Suet, as opposed to other types of beef fat, does not smell or taste like beef!
- Once suet is rendered into tallow, it has a very high smoke point.
- Tallow is shelf-stable at room temperature.
- Tallow is very rich in nutrients.
As you can see, tallow rendered from suet is definitely something we want to have in our traditional foods kitchen!
Now, if you live in the U.K., you’re probably wondering why I suggest going through the hassle of dealing with raw suet when all you have to do is stroll down to the corner grocer and pick up a box of processed suet. While I’m sure there are stores here in the States that sell this product, I sure can’t find it here in northern Indiana. We had to go online to buy a box, which ended up going through customs to get here.
This little point of trivia is important in order to understand the old English recipes. Suet is grated or picked into small pieces as part of the process of preparing it for cooking. When mixed with other ingredients — let’s say the a batter for a traditional boiled pudding, the particles of suet retain their mass well into the cooking process. When the melting point of suet is finally reached, the surrounding batter has already begun to set. By the time full baking temperature is reached within the pudding, the suet has melted, leaving a void in the batter.
In my last post, I took a brief look at the important role suet had in 18th century foodways as well as in life in general. I gave an over-simplified explanation that suet is the hard fat from the loins of beef and mutton. I’d like to add a little more meat, so to speak, to that definition.
Beef suet can sometimes be a bit difficult to find here in the United States. I suspect that much of it ends up rendered, mixed with peanut butter and birdfeed, and packaged into blocks of winter-time bird food. Suet is a perfect high-caloric attraction for all my feathered friends who decide to stick out the cold northern winter with me.
Rendered suet, on the other hand, will congeal into a solid chunk. (I’ll talk about the actually rendering process in my next post.) The chunk I made felt like a bar of beauty soap. Mix rendered suet with a little lye and a chemical reaction occurs that results in water-soluble sodium stearate — the primary ingredient in most hand soaps.
5 Ways Tallow (Beef Fat) Can Help You Lose Weight
FAQ
What is another name for beef fat?
What do Americans call suet?
What is a substitute for beef suet?
What is beef suet?
Last week I wrote about a delicious Japanese hotpot called sukiyaki, which requires a block of beef suet to oil the pan before cooking the meat and vegetables. Most people understand that suet is beef fat, but what exactly is it, and what do you do with it? Suet is raw beef fat from around the joints and kidneys that has a low melting point.
How do you define suet?
In order to define suet, you have to first understand the anatomy of a cow. Different parts of the cow have different types of fat. This includes somewhat hard fats (like the fat you might find on a steak) that might not melt completely at high heat and less solid fats like suet. Suet is specifically found around joints and near kidneys.
What is the melting point of beef suet?
Beef Suet has a white appearance, slightly crumbly, and almost dry to the touch. Suet has a melting point of between 113 °F (45 °C) and 122 °F (50 °C). The high smoke point of Suet makes it the perfect beef fat for stable frying and was a traditional way of making calorie-dense pastries, puddings, and pies. What is Tallow?
Is suet the same as tallow?
But, they are really not the same thing, and they actually refer to fat in different stages of processing. Fat is called suet being its rendered while tallow is the name for the fat after rendering. Keep in mind that while suet and tallow are different, they are both derived from beef (or another livestock animal like lamb).