Using duck fat instead of butter in a recipe for herbed butter

(Bob M) #1

Alton Brown had this “Turketta” recipe on his new show:

What you do is create an herb-flavored butter by heating the butter with herbs. One of the people coming to our holiday is Jewish, so in an effort to stay close to halal/kosher, I was thinking of substituting duck fat instead of the butter. I would then keep any left over duck fat for other recipes.

Do you think this would work?

By the way, the rule against mixing dairy and meat is a tough one. This is why, when the saturated fat hysteria came along, the Jewish moved largely to plant oils. That likely was not a great move. They used animal fats (e.g., schmaltz, chicken fat) until then.

(Full Metal KETO AF) #2

Unless they are following Kosher laws it might not matter. Are you serving Kosher meat too? Is the Duck Fat kosher? There’s a lot of modern Jewish people eating bacon cheeseburgers these days. I would talk to them if you don’t know for sure, the extra efforts might not be necessary. :wink:

:cowboy_hat_face:

(Bob M) #3

Hi David, I hoped you’d respond. They don’t keep kosher, as it’s impossible to do so. The “no dairy and meat together” rule is tough, as we use butter with everything. We don’t use kosher turkey, only because I brine it anyway.

(Edith) #4

I used duck fat for meat and even vegetable recipes that require butter. It is a pretty good substitute and relatively mild in flavor.

(Bob M) #5

I was rereading this book:

And she (Mary Enig) was saying that bird fats (schmaltz, duck fat, goose fat) were used a lot, before the saturated fat hysteria came a long. Whenever I cook a duck or goose, I collect the fat, and that started me cooking with it. So, I figured I could just use duck fat instead of butter. I can get duck fat and lard (pork fat) locally. I can’t get tallow, goose fat, or schmaltz locally (at least any place I normally shop).

I’m trying to become more of a “nose to tail” person, so I’m trying to use the whole animal. I also want something different to try for our Christmas dinner. We usually do beef, but I was thinking turkey is relatively reasonable (a heck of a lot cheaper than prime rib for instance) and can feed a lot. Duck takes too many of them (I can easily eat 1/2 a duck) and goose is too expensive.

(Edith) #6

Turkey carcass makes an awesome broth/stock!