Secret ingredients

Well, not so much secret ingredients…but things I pretty much keep on hand at all times.

From left to right: a mason jar of bacon fat, Maldon flaked sea salt, a quart container of duck fat, kosher salt, and clarified butter.

I’m not going to go into my love of salt or the importance of it in all foods – both savory and sweet – too much has already been said about it. Just know that in addition to these two salts that live on my counter, I also have containers of grey sea salt, fleur de sel, pink Himalayan salt, smoked sea salt and good old Morton’s in my spice cabinet.

But let’s talk about something even more near and dear to my heart: fats.

Don’t get me wrong…I love extra virgin olive oil. I go through giant metal gallon containers more often than I care to think about. But man (and women) cannot live on extra virgin olive oil alone.

Now, I realize that duck fat is not a staple in most kitchens. But I would definitely recommend considering it. This quart container is from various batches of duck confit I’ve made over the past year. However, most specialty stores sell small containers of duck fat in case you don’t feel like rendering it out yourself. Potatoes cooked in duck fat is by far the best way to eat the spud. I won’t say that it’s life-changing, but the first time I had this was definitely a revelation.

Something slightly more accessible is bacon fat. Whenever I cook bacon, I pass the rendered fat through cheesecloth and a tiny tea strainer. My mom used to put the leftover bacon fat in a frozen orange juice can to harden and then tossed it. But that’s really a shame given the amount of flavor from just a small amount of bacon fat. I use this to sauté onions, fry eggs, as a base for tomato sauce and a number of soups, grease pans and season my cast iron. All this from a byproduct of a weekend breakfast (or my current favorite thing to make – bacon peanut candy).

Finally, there’s my container of clarified butter. Now, I realize that clarified butter may seem a little fussy – an unnecessary step when one could easily use vegetable oil or a combination of olive oil and regular butter. But trust me, as easy as slowly melting a few sticks of whole butter, it’s worth the few minutes it takes to make. I use whole butter (butter in stick form) all the time when I cook, but sometimes when I need a higher heat, I’ll reach for this container. Breaded chicken breasts and steaks pan-seared in clarified butter brings an entirely different dimension of flavor to the meat. I also brush the pan with this for buttermilk pancakes (alleviating the need for extra butter on top) and use this in place of oil for the most delicious popcorn.

Clarified Butter
Because butter in stick form is made of butterfat, milk solids and water, whole butter burns at a fairly low temperature. The process of “clarifying” the butter removes the milk solids and leaves straight-up butterfat – a great cooking fat with butter flavor and a much higher smoke point.

Process: Place two sticks of unsalted butter in a small heavy saucepan and melt slowly over low heat. Turn off heat and let stand for five minutes. Skim the foam. Slowly pour the clear yellow liquid into a container being careful to keep the milky solids in the pan. Let cool (this will solidify). Tightly cover and store in refrigerator. Some books recommend keeping this for only one month...however, I've kept it for at least three (maybe closer to six) and haven't had any issues.