In this months Costco Connection Magazine there is an article about bones and a appetizing photograph of grilled center cut marrow bones. Which gave me the idea for this topic. I know that some will say why come up with these money making ideas for others to line their pockets with but that's what being a meat cutter is all about. I have never met a meat cutter that didn't possess just a little creativity .
If you look around you every thing we touch these days is recyclable. From beer cans to magazines to mortar oil and even tires. Why not start to recycle our waste at the meat department level. Look you handle it anyway. You bring it in the back door and then it has to go back out the same door with you doing the labor. Why not treat the waste like we do strips or rib-eyes. In the back door out the front door. The Mainmeatman already told us what he does with his beef fat by making suet balls. Heck even it you got .25 cents a pound isn't it better to pay to have it taken away and somebody else will make money on it or worse yet sending it to a landfill!
After all what do you think "pink slime" is. (Lftb) or "finely textured beef". It is fat trim with lean traces and it is cold rendered. So why let the packers make all the money, we hear that all the time from the members. The Packers are putting us out of the meat cutting business. Right! I know you can't render it but you can sell it as streak o lean beef trimmings or something like that.
Who goes through your fat barrels now a days? Probably no one. So take that fat with the "streak of lean left on it and simply fill up a 8's tray and put it out there. You can have a few days on it before you re-pull it, if it doesn't sell. But make it sell price it close and get-it-gone. With the high cost of meat today you don't know who or who will buy this product. Make some bird seed balls too to give yourself another avenue to sell it. You've got to handle it anyway "recycle it" and give you shoppers a break.
Selling the beef purge is another recycling potential for fishermen.
Now getting back to creativity. Just don't pile the beef fat up in volcano's, you can slice and dice it to make it look more appealing and with the streak o lean trim that little bit of lean will make the package look more like a beef item especially if you slice and dice it. This is done with pork all the time. Down south here fat back is a huge seller as well as fresh pork bacon and streak o lean.
Here are a few cooking suggestions for beef fat that maybe you can tell your customers about.
1) Save it. You can make Yorkshire pudding, fry up some home fries, sauté veggies for soup. grind some when (if) you grind your own hamburger - the list is endless. Freeze that treasure!
2) Cut it up into small pieces and put it in a pot with some beans. There's no flavor comparable. Also, it requires no advance prep or rendering this way, and you don't have to worry about it burning in a pan.
3) If you feed the birds they will love it. Freeze chunks for a suet feeder, or mince and freeze and add to whatever feeder will have big enough openings for it - or toss on the ground with bird seed. Also you could render it and soak bread cubes in it for the birds. Add a little peanut butter to the melted fat before you toss in the bread.
4) Render it and use for sautéing rice before making a stir-fry with beef and veggies.
5) Do you have a neighbor with chickens? They are omnivorous, and feeding them animal fat helps keep them from pecking at each other.
6) Make pie crust! I made the best pie crust I've ever made with suet- used it for a meat pie. Incredibly flaky, easy to work with, not as beefy-tasting as I though it might be.
7) And if you cook it down (render), tallow mixed with oil makes the best French fries.
