Veal, composite of trimmed retail cuts, separable fat, cooked

This entry refers to the separable fat trimmed away from cooked veal, the fat cap and marbling butchers cut off retail cuts like veal chops and roasts rather than the lean meat itself. On the plate it appears as a soft, pale rim around a chop or a marbled seam through a roast, with a mild, milky flavor much less pronounced than beef fat. Some cooks render small amounts of it in the pan to baste the lean veal as it cooks, since it melts readily and helps keep delicate veal from drying out, though it's rarely eaten as a standalone piece.

Nutritionally it's essentially pure fat, 66.7 g per 100 g and 642 calories, with 9.42 g protein and no carbohydrate, numbers that make clear this is the fatty trim rather than the cut of meat a shopper would plan a meal around. Sodium is naturally low at 57 mg per 100 g since it's untreated fat rather than a cured or seasoned product. When trimming veal at home, this fat can be rendered in a skillet over low heat and used sparingly to sear vegetables or baste a roast, or simply trimmed and discarded if a leaner plate is the goal.