Storing bacon grease

[Dawgluver]

I accidently left my precious can of bacon grease on the counter overnight. I usually keep it in the fridge. It should be OK, right? It's back in the fridge now. Thanks!

 

[Rocklobster]

I think you should be ok. My mom left a jar of it on the back of the stove for years....

 

[Dawgluver]

Thanks Rock. That's kinda what I thought.

 

[Katie H]

Whew!!! A near crisis avoided. You must protect your bacon commodities at all costs.

Yep, pork fat rules.

+1 here. I'd think you are okay. Your kitchen is probably air-conditioned, so it wasn't as if it was sitting in a 90-degree environment all night.

 

[Addie]

You and your bacon grease are good to go. Bacon Rules. Bacon fat rules even more! I once made scratch cheese biscuits with bacon fat. (It was the only fat I had on hand at the time.) My husband said they were even better than any his mother ever made. And she was a true hillbilly cook.

 

[buckytom]

my mom did the same as rock's, although only for a few days or maybe up to a week at a time.

i keep mine (actually 3 kinds - regular, maple, and extra smoked) in old jelly jars in the fridge.

 

[Somebunny]

My mom kept hers on the stove too, in a glass Pyrex type bacon fat lidded pot/jar it continually liquefied and solidified with the heat of the stove top and the kitchen itself. I own the container now, but I keep my bacon fat in the fridge in a recycled jelly jar. Bacon fat will go rancid over time, even if refrigerated.

 

[Rocklobster]

my mom did the same as rock's, although only for a few days or maybe up to a week at a time.

.

I guess I should have said something like that too. I don't think she was cooking with year old bacon grease And if she was, that will explain my iron stomach..

 

[taxlady]

You guys got me thinking. My bacon fat is continually getting used and topped up, so the stuff at the bottom is the oldest. Maybe it would be better to leave it out of the fridge so it liquefies and the old stuff always gets mixed with the newer stuff.

 

[Luca Lazzari]

I accidently left my precious can of bacon grease on the counter overnight. I usually keep it in the fridge. It should be OK, right? It's back in the fridge now. Thanks!

Friends, I'm a little confused: what exactly is this bacon grease/bacon fat/pork fat? Is it an industrial product that you buy in stores, made with fat coming from porks? Or do you get it from your pork meat?
And just because I'm curious and greedy, what kinds of ready-to-buy pork fats do you have in North Amerikay?

Thanks!

 

[buckytom]

luca,

in general terms, bacon grease is simply the liquid redered fat from cooking pork.

 

[buckytom]

in the u.s., it is most often derived from pan frying strips of pork belly that americans call bacon, and those dreaded englishmen call streaky rashers.

why always the freakin' drama?

bacon. period.

no verbs needed, nor poetic descriptions of landscapes

 

[Luca Lazzari]

luca,

in general terms, bacon grease is simply the liquid redered fat from cooking pork.

in the u.s., it is most often derived from pan frying strips of pork belly that americans call bacon, and those dreaded englishmen call .

Thanks Buckytom

why always the freakin' drama?

bacon. period.

no verbs needed, nor poetic descriptions of landscapes

Since you talk about a freakin' drama, I'll answer with some Italian melodrama.
Directly from the endless range of Italian dialects (and from wikipedia.it), some of the names by which we call the SAME THING, which are a sort Carnival sweets, across Italy:

bugie
cenci
chiacchiere
cioffe
crogetti
crostoli
cróstoli
cróstoli
cunchiell'
fiocchetti
frappe
galàni
gale
gali
garrulitas
gròstoi
grostoli
gròstoli
grustal
lasagne
lattughe
latughe
manzole
maraviglias
pampuglie
qunchiell
risòle
rosoni
sfrappe sprelle
sfrappole
sosole
stracci
uanti...

 

[buckytom]

i'm with the dreaded english...

 

[Dawgluver]

Friends, I'm a little confused: what exactly is this bacon grease/bacon fat/pork fat? Is it an industrial product that you buy in stores, made with fat coming from porks? Or do you get it from your pork meat?
And just because I'm curious and greedy, what kinds of ready-to-buy pork fats do you have in North Amerikay?

Thanks!

Luca, I'm curious. There's no equivalent of bacon in Italy? Our bacon is smoked here, my understanding is you have pancetta, which is unsmoked, correct?

 

[buckytom]

i'm no expert like luca, but you can get smoked pancetta, or even guanciale. it's just not as common as un-smoked.

 

[Luca Lazzari]

Luca, I'm curious. There's no equivalent of bacon in Italy? Our bacon is smoked here, my understanding is you have pancetta, which is unsmoked, correct?

Ciao Dawgluver, yes, we could say that pancetta is the Italian way to bacon. Even if I prefer to think that bacon is the anglo-saxon way to pancetta... And no, we have also smoked pancetta.
Our pancetta is a cut coming from the belly of the pig, and part of the rib. There are many different kinds. Basically you have two big groups of pancetta: one that you buy in chunks - or already diced -, one that you buy in rolls - or already sliced - (recently I saw a third kind, cut in flat large stripes, aping "american bacon").
It is basically a salted, spiced and aged cold cut, and it can be smoked or not smoked.
The "chunk" variety is generally diced and used to cook, for example to prepare pasta sauces or other meat or vegs recipes, it is not served raw, it is not cut to be eaten as other salumi as a starter nor in sandwiches.
The "rolled" variety is served and eaten as other salumi, sliced or in panini and sandwiches, but can also be used to wrap foods during cooking, to add flavor.

From a glutton point of view, pancetta is a key ingredient to produce supertasty pasta sauces, like amatriciana, carbonara, gricia, even if you should use guanciale, to be really posh

 

[Luca Lazzari]

i'm no expert like luca, but you can get smoked pancetta, or even guanciale. it's just not as common as un-smoked.

Thanks Buckytom.
However, I'm not an expert, I just have a big mouth and a giant ego.

 

[Dawgluver]

Grazie Luca. Great info! So if you rendered the pancetta, you could get something similar to bacon grease.

 

[Luca Lazzari]

Grazie Luca. Great info! So if you rendered the pancetta, you could get something similar to bacon grease.

I suppose so, but as far as I know this "rendering" technique is not used in our country. First, we tend to use olive oil as a fat to cook, or butter. Second, if we want some good old pork fat, we buy "strutto" or "lardo", which are made using that technique, more or less, but are nice, ready and pure. Well, as long as a jar or pork fat could be considered pure...
I could talk for hours about strutto and lardo. I will not.
Just one thing: the "pesto alla modenese" is a key ingredient for tigelle, a typical Emilia recipe, in which you cook small dough disks, very compact, then you eat them with any sort of salumi and cheese and, as I said, "pesto". Which is high quality pork fat, cured with salt and herbs (usually sage, rosemary and oregano). You melt the lard on the hot tigella, add a ton of grated parmigiano reggiano cheese, then add what salumi or other cheese you like best. Then you drink a glass of Lambrusco, and the fight is on.
After some years of training, now I can go head to head with the locals in these "tigellate", till the end.