Suet is saturated fat that is used in many traditional British recipes, such as steamed puddings, pastry, and sweet mincemeat. Meat suet adds a dark and rich flavoring to dishes like meat pies, while vegetarian suet is used for lighter foods.
What Is Suet?
Suet is made from the fat that surrounds the kidneys of animals (mostly cows and mutton). The fat is removed from the meat, clarified, chopped, and then boiled in water, which removes any impurities. Upon cooling, the water and fat separate and the remaining fat is suet. Suet has a melting point of between 113 F and 122 F, and a congelation of 98.6 F and 104 F. Its high smoke point makes it perfect for deep frying and pastry.
Rendered suet is suet that has been heated to the melting point. It is typically made into tallow and used in some recipes; tallow is also an ingredient in soap and bird food.
How to Cook Suet
To make your own suet, you'll need to purchase the "suet knobs" of animals. Your butcher may have some, but it's more likely you will have to special order it: the suet is typically removed from the carcass after slaughter and therefore doesn't usually get to market.
Cook suet in a heavy saucepan over moderately low heat until it's melted, clear, and golden (about 20 minutes). Pour the rendered suet through a fine sieve into a bowl. Allow it to cool, then freeze the suet until it is firm and white. Used it finely chopped or grated in your recipes and refrigerate or freeze the unused portions.
What Does Suet Taste Like?
Fresh suet has a mild, bland taste, a slightly meaty smell, and a dry, crumbly texture. When it's incorporated into sweet dishes—what the British call "puddings"— it imparts a distinct richness yet somehow avoids making them taste like beef. When used in pie crusts,suet produces a flaky and crispy texturethat makes a good base for a wet filling. A combination of butter and suet creates both the flavor and texture you would want in sweet pie crusts, but for a rustic meat pie suet alone would be more appropriate.
Alternatives to Suet in Your Cooking
You can use a suet alternative in your cooking, but you may not get quite the same results as you would get from the real thing. Still, there are some decent substitutes that will get you close.
Some recipes recommend using frozen butter as a substitute for suet, but this is risky as the butter melts much fasterthan suet and your dish will become greasy and heavy.
If you can't find suet or you just don't want to use it, try shortening instead. One of the advantages of using vegetable shortening is that it is suitable for vegetarian dishes. Before using it, freeze the shortening until it is very firm. Once frozen, grate on a large holed grater so you get more chunky pieces. Once grated, freeze again and only use when you are ready to mix into your recipe. You can also pulse the frozen, grated shortening in a food processor which will clump the shortening and again, more resembles real suet.
Use your frozen, grated shortening as you would in any recipe calling for suet. You can also make the alternative suet in advance and keep it frozen in bags in the freezer if you are going to use it regularly. It will only keep for a month or two at most.
Suet Recipes
The British term both their savory dishes and desserts as "pudding". Each of these recipes calls for suet, in either the meat or vegetarian form:
Traditional Steak and Kidney Pudding
The Best Christmas Pudding
Christmas Mincemeat
Cranberry, Almond, and Orange Christmas Pudding
Where to Buy Suet
You might find meat suet in the grocery store but you can also find it in specialty British food shops or online. Ready-made vegetarian alternatives are also available in leading supermarkets. Look for the brand Atora for both the meat and vegetarian versions.
Storing Suet
Suet should be kept in the refrigerator and used within a few days or you can store it in the freezer, in freezer bags, where it will keep for several months. Rendered suet also will keep for several months at room temperature.
The primary use of suet is to make tallow, although it is also used as an ingredient in cooking, especially in traditional baked puddings, such as British Christmas pudding. Suet is made into tallow in a process called rendering, which involves melting fats and extended simmering, followed by straining, then cooling.
Suet is used in traditional boiled, steamed or baked savoury and sweet puddings, such as steak and kidney pudding, spotted dick and jam roly-poly. It is also used to make soft-textured pastry, dumplings, haggis, mincemeat, Christmas pudding, and a rendered fat called tallow. Grate coarsely before use.
Beef suet and tallow are high in saturated fat, which can be unhealthy in excess. However, they also contain important vitamins and nutrients. For example, they are a good source of vitamins A, D, and K, which are all fat-soluble vitamins that play important roles in immune function, bone health, and blood clotting.
Suet is most famously used in British pies and savory puddings, but there are many ways to use suet: In dumplings. In any sort of savory suet pudding. For general frying because of its 400-degree smoke point.
In terms of nutrition, vegetable suet contains about 25% less fat than meat-based suet, but is still pretty fatty. According to nutritional tables, 1 ounce of vegetable suet contains 26.6 g of fat, including 14.8 g of saturated fat. That same ounce of vegetable suet packs over 200 calories, but not a whole lot else.
Described as the “ultimate trail mix for your wild birds,” you can combine this with your suet dough and put it out in your bird feeders to attract bluebirds, cardinals, robins, warblers, woodpeckers, and more.
If you can't find suet or you just don't want to use it, try shortening instead. One of the advantages of using vegetable shortening is that it is suitable for vegetarian dishes. Before using it, freeze the shortening until it is very firm.
Suet and Tallow, just like avocado oil and coconut oil consists of natural and healthy unrefined saturated fats ~ an ideal daily addition to your healthy diet. Processed vegetable and seed oils like Canola Oil and Sunflower Oil are high in unhealthy polyunsaturated fats.
Attached to a Trunk - Attaching a suet feeder directly to the trunk of a tree birds love is a great way to attract trunk-hugging birds like nuthatches, woodpeckers, and creepers. In the Shade - Suet can melt and become sticky quickly on hot days, making it less palatable to birds.
Eating lots of saturated fat can raise your cholesterol and increase your risk of heart disease. Saturated fat is found in: butter, ghee, suet, lard, coconut oil and palm oil.
Suet should be kept in the refrigerator and used within 5 days if fresh or portion it up using freezer bags where Suet will keep for 6 months frozen then use as needed. Storing Tallow is even easier. Tallow will solidify and keep at room temperature in a sealed container for up to a year and won't go rancid.
As the temperature warms, suet can spoil or become rancid and harbor bacterial and fungal growth that may be harmful to birds. In addition, melting suet can coat feathers and interfere with their natural waterproofing and insulating functions.
Lard is rendered pig fat and suet is cow or sheep produced fat. Suet is a hard fat surrounding the kidney and loins. Lard is from the semi soft white fat of a pig.
Vegetarian suet has also become popular and is made from a vegetable oil instead. If you can't find suet then we have found that grated vegetable shortening (such as Trex, Crisco or Copha) is a good substitute.
A Guide to Suet and Its Alternatives. Suet is a type of saturated fat that home cooks use to add moisture to sweet and savory dishes. Suet has a crumbly texture and stays solid at room temperature, so it can result in a less-greasy pie crust than butter would yield.
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