Beef, retail cuts, separable fat, raw

This is the raw fat trimmed away from beef retail cuts, the firm white layer a butcher slices off a steak or roast before it goes into the case. Home cooks and butchers save this trim rather than discarding it, rendering it slowly in a pan to produce beef tallow, a cooking fat prized for high-heat frying and roasting because it browns potatoes and vegetables with a deep, savory crust. The trimmed fat can also be ground into hamburger meat for extra juiciness, wrapped around lean roasts as a barding layer to keep them moist while cooking, or worked into pastry dough in place of butter or shortening for a flakier crust.

Ask a butcher to set aside beef fat trim, or save it when breaking down cuts at home, then refrigerate for a few days or freeze for longer storage until ready to render. To render, cut the fat into small pieces and cook it low and slow in a heavy pot, straining the liquid tallow into a jar once the solids have crisped. It is essentially a pure cooking fat, with 70.9 g of fat and 674 calories per 100 g, along with 8.21 g of protein still clinging to the trimmed pieces, about 16 percent of the daily value. Sodium and carbohydrate are both negligible, so this fat functions purely as a cooking medium and flavor base rather than a food eaten on its own.