Rendering

Years ago when my Dad killed our own meat on the farm, the carcasses would be left to cool with the kidney fat still inside. When they were brought to the enormous chopping block outside the woodshed to be cut up for freezing, the lump of kidney fat would be broken open, kidneys extracted and the fat thrown on the woodshed roof for the wax-eyes. (birds)

I know, precious pure suet, but when you live on mutton you have more fat than you know what to do with. 

Mum never made suet puddings.

Commercial fat balls to feed birds here cost a King's ransom, so on the way back to the 'ranch' from Blenheim this week I called at the butcher's shop in Renwick and asked if I could buy some fat trimmings or offcuts. 

"How much do you want?" asked the very friendy and cheerful butcher. He sort of mimed a shopping bag with his hands and I nodded.  It couldn't possibly cost the $60 the hardware shop was charging for about that of fatballs.

Nothing. Nadda. Free. Gratis. Not a cent to pay.  The bag had 5 or 6 kilograms of fat and meat trimmings.  Oh crikey - I don't have fridge space for that but not one to refuse a generous response to my enquiry, I nodded and bought a pork chop. A purchase seemed only right.

Renwick's butcher shop incorporates a bakery and it was lunch time so I dragged my prize through the internal door to where a couple of uniformed women were run off their feet cheerfully selling hot meat pies to a long queue of pie fans.

It would be without exaggeration that I have to report the steak, cheese and bacon pie I purchased was THE BEST pie I have eaten in years, and possibly the least expensive (much cheaper than Havelock).

You might have to be a Kiwi to understand the cultural importance of meat pies as a takeaway food; the kind of pastry used seems to be unique to these shores and although the fillings have expanded vastly since the steak and gravy, mince, or steak and kidney pies of my youth, a good pie shop is generally still judged on the filling in its steak pies. Pastry slightly flaky on the outside with good holding qualities on the inside (you don't want steak and gravy collapsing down your shirt front), melt in the mouth big lumps of steak well packed into a thick rich brown gravy... This pie was superlative.  Even Scully thought so when I begrudgingly shared a morsel or two.

I digress - this was meant to be about a bag of fat trimmings but A BIG SHOUT OUT FOR THE PIES AT THE BUTCHER'S BAKERY IN RENWICK.

Big shout out for that butcher generally.

Arriving home I quickly nailed my improvised bird feeders (4 I prepared earlier from a large stash of discarded frying pans in the scrap metal at Bro's place) to the tops of posts and tossed in some lumps of clean fat. It will take a few days for birds to find this.

Scully's blue football in the foreground. (The rough bit is a dressing of horse manure.)

About half of the scraps needed meat cleaning off them as I had decided to render the fat to reduce bulk and make it cleaner to use. The result was over a kilogram of meat suitable for stewing. That all went into the crockpot (slow cooker) overnight with lentils, tomatoes, onions and spices and this morning I was giving yoghurt buckets of 'curry' away to neighbours. 

Today half the cleaned fat went into the crockpot and this evening I have a pint and half (pint sized preserving jars) of rendered fat. Other half tomorrow. The wax-eyes will go crazy for this stuff.

End result. My grandmother would have made soap out of this.

Scully meanwhile has not left my side for 36 hours; went home with her humum late this afternoon and was back minutes later. I suspect the prolonged meaty cooking smell around here has her tethered by her nose.