Father's Day Latkes and a flood!

Father's Day started with bacon, fresh laid eggs and homemade waffles. Beccy managed to stagger out of bed to make it after a late night. She wasn't so happy from the rather early enthusiastic promptings by her eager young siblings to get up and make it but she done good!.

For lunch, another course of rib sticking fried tastiness in the way of Potato Latkes. I used my new spiral potato shredder for the potatoes (with their skins left on). As well as onion, chopped bacon, eggs, flour and milk, to make a batter.

They were fried in what some would think as the evil incarnate of the fat world. Rendered beef fat. This was the fat I ground up and rendered myself a few weeks ago.

They were delicious and reminiscent of my childhood and the time before Canola Oil. They reminded me in particular of brain fritters. I had one latke that was just a bit gooey in the middle. It reminded me of creamy lambs brains. The batter was so crispy perfect on the outside. I can see that lamb's brain fritters would not be anything as good fried in vegetable oil.

We have had a wonderful week of rain. It has shown how badly our backyard is drained. I definitely need to finish those raised garden beds! I caught sarah about to go out and play in the water with a bunch of dinosaurs! Lucky the Nieces and Nephews are interstate today adn won't be here tonight for dinner as usual or they would be out in it for sure!

Mincing and rendering porterhouse steak.

A few weeks ago I bought a mincer. Since then I have minced up some prime beef and the flavour is so unlike the stupormarket beef it is quite unbelievable. I mean, all they do is grind up fresh beef too right? The cut and being able to hand pick what you are about to grind up really does make a difference.
I bought a slab of porterhouse steak with a thick rind of yellow fat. i trimmed most of the fat off and minced the sliced meat.

Rather than being wasteful, I decided that if I rendered the fat, i could use it in soap making. It ended up being full of flavour so I decided it would be better to cook with it.
First I ground up the fat. It really isn't that much effort to do it and quite fun.

Then I placed the minced fat over a medium heat.

What happened next really surprised me. The fat came out like I was melting a candle. It was so fast. I remember buying really cheap mince once and seeing it render like this lol. These next pics took place over about 5minutes.

Next I strained it all through a sieve. All that connective tissue, gristle and scrappy bits still didn't go to waste. The chooks gobbled it up!

Here is the jug i was left with.

I did attempt to wash the fat with clean water, then left it to separate and rise to the top in the fridge. it was still very beefy smelling and tasting.
When I chose the piece of porterhouse, I chose the one with the yellowest fat. That is usually a sign that the animal was pastured on green grass and therefore the fat contained high levels of vitamins. The same ones that make your chicken eggs bright orange or yellow and good butter and cream yellow. Here it is beside a block of butter.

My Dad often mentions eating bread and dripping when he was a kid. Now I can understand as this would be tasty spread on bread with a sprinkle of salt!