Chicken Fat (Schmaltz)

Chicken Fat (Schmaltz): Nutrition, History and Cooking Guide

Chicken fat — rendered from the fatty parts of the chicken, particularly around the cavity, neck, and kidneys — is known in Jewish cooking as schmaltz (from the Yiddish for rendered animal fat), where it is of profound cultural and culinary importance. In the Ashkenazi Jewish food tradition, schmaltz was the primary cooking fat for centuries — pork lard being forbidden by kashrut, and butter unavailable for cooking most meat dishes under the prohibition on mixing meat and dairy. Schmaltz produced from chickens or geese (gänseschmaltz) was used for frying, for making grieben (the crispy bits of skin and onion remaining after rendering — a delicacy in their own right), and for preserving foods. Jewish chicken soup made from old hens produced substantial schmaltz as a byproduct, which was carefully collected and used for weeks of cooking. The expression "putting schmaltz on it" — meaning adding richness, sentimentality, or excess — derives from this culinary tradition.

Nutritional Value and Uses

Chicken fat provides 900 kcal and 99.8 g of fat per 100 g, with 29.8 g of saturated fat — similar to goose fat and the lowest saturated fat of the common animal cooking fats. The fat is predominantly monounsaturated (oleic acid) with some polyunsaturated fat. To render schmaltz: slowly cook chicken skin and fat with onion until the fat has fully liquefied and the skin has crisped. Strain and store the golden fat (schmaltz) refrigerated for weeks. Use for frying latkes (potato pancakes), for flavouring matzah balls, for cooking chicken liver, and anywhere an intensely savoury chicken flavour in cooking is desired.