How do you deal with the left over fat/oil in your pan?
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Reusing cooking oil causes cancer. I thought this was wildly known, but I'm consistently surprised at how many people online say things like this.
This is why "drip jars" stopped being used in the 20th century. There used to be one in every house until it was understood it causes stomach cancer.
https://www.sfa.gov.sg/food-safety-tips/food-risk-concerns/risk-at-a-glance/reusing-cooking-oils
wrote last edited by [email protected]But singapore site links USDA q&a on how to reuse it safely and has section for "what you need to do if you reuse oil". They don't particularly advice or encourage single use.
Oil quality is dependent on storage method (strain it with filter, keep airtight non-transparent container etc) and cooking temperature so people need to be informed, but I don't see reusing it once or twice with appropriate care cause significant harm.
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Depends on what kind of leftover fat.
If frying something in measurable quantities of oil, the oil can be filtered to remove solids, then stored to re-use later.
If cooking something greasy like bacon or sausage, either I'll cook other things in the same pan after, or I'll pour it through a strainer, let it cool, and freeze it. Once I've saved a bunch, I clarify it.
Fat is flavor. In my house, it doesn't get thrown away. There are lots of ways to reuse it.
What kind of filter?
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I used to pour it into a glass jar. But these days I'm just using a paper towel or 3 after it dries and chuckin it in the bin.
Lubricate the garbage disposal with it.
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I used to pour it into a glass jar. But these days I'm just using a paper towel or 3 after it dries and chuckin it in the bin.
Our city's trash disposal also provides free plastic buckets for cooking oil. I try to use that as often as possible. I love it
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Omfg...bacon grease popcorn...I'm about to take 10 years off my life
Hell yea. I used some oil recently that had be used to good something (IDK.. housemate food) with heaps of curry powder flavours and some chilli. That was awesome.
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Popcorn made in pre-used oil can be awesome, and an easy way to get rid of 100ml or so.
Popcorn made in pre-used oil can be awesome, and an easy way to get rid of 100ml or so.
Then there was that time in college I tried to re-use oil I had previously fried shrimp in.
Turns out shrimp-flavored popcorn is not an enjoyable experience!
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I respect that you were brave enough to admit on the internet to using a little soap now and again with your cast iron. It took me about a year after I rehabbed mom's pans to work up the courage to gently swipe a little soap on them now and again. They still get dried in the oven and moisturized with avocado oil. Mah bebes.
I do not baby cast iron at all. I use plenty of dish soap and scrub it. But then again, I've also to completely refinished cast iron before. You learn to appreciate how durable seasoning can be when you actually try and remove it. My main skillet I've in the past taken it down to bare metal with an angle grinder, then built the seasoning back up from nothing.
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Please do tell so I know how to properly take care of this precious property for my lovely landlord who respects us very much.
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Popcorn made in pre-used oil can be awesome, and an easy way to get rid of 100ml or so.
Then there was that time in college I tried to re-use oil I had previously fried shrimp in.
Turns out shrimp-flavored popcorn is not an enjoyable experience!
Haha, yeah. Also, anything with too many burnt carbs is not great.
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I used to pour it into a glass jar. But these days I'm just using a paper towel or 3 after it dries and chuckin it in the bin.
I'm in a rental so it goes straight down the drain
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Lubricate the garbage disposal with it.
Damn, I'm happy you said garbage disposal.
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Our city's trash disposal also provides free plastic buckets for cooking oil. I try to use that as often as possible. I love it
Oh that's cool actually. I hadn't heard of that before.
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Popcorn made in pre-used oil can be awesome, and an easy way to get rid of 100ml or so.
Then there was that time in college I tried to re-use oil I had previously fried shrimp in.
Turns out shrimp-flavored popcorn is not an enjoyable experience!
Some lessons only take once to cement the learning for a lifetime.
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But the salt.
Not all oil is salty. I suppose there are probably pros and cons to composting it, but I'd expect it to draw pests like crazy.
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I used to pour it into a glass jar. But these days I'm just using a paper towel or 3 after it dries and chuckin it in the bin.
I usually just pour it over the rice or macaroni or whatever, to consume whatever little is there, so as not to waste it, and for flavor.
I try to fry stuff in tallow as well, which is a lot nicer IMO.
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I used to pour it into a glass jar. But these days I'm just using a paper towel or 3 after it dries and chuckin it in the bin.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I currently use (probably too many) paper towels to absorb the oil and then toss them into the trash can. I'm not happy with this solution, but I don't want to pour it down the drain.
I found this the other day https://fryaway.co/ but I haven't tried it yet. It's supposed to make the oil solid so you can more easily toss it.
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I used to pour it into a glass jar. But these days I'm just using a paper towel or 3 after it dries and chuckin it in the bin.
You can compost it if you aren’t generating huge amounts. Mix it with something absorbent like sawdust or used coffee grounds and mix into a composter, and add extra “green material” like leaves or lawn clippings.
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I do not baby cast iron at all. I use plenty of dish soap and scrub it. But then again, I've also to completely refinished cast iron before. You learn to appreciate how durable seasoning can be when you actually try and remove it. My main skillet I've in the past taken it down to bare metal with an angle grinder, then built the seasoning back up from nothing.
wrote last edited by [email protected]My first exposure to cast iron was through boy scouts with cast iron griddles and Dutch ovens cooking on an open fire.
They got left out in the rain, blasted with heat hot enough to melt lesser metals*, had all manner of acidic foods cooked in them, got scrubbed clean with steel wool and dish soap, spent most of their lives when they weren't in use in a garage with no climate control where the humidity often got pretty gross, and generally got used, abused, and neglected. Never had any issues with the seasoning, rust, etc. I think one time after a camping trip by the beach where they sat out getting lightly twisted with salt spray all weekend, they picked up a bit of rust, so someone's dad got them sandblasted at his job, and after a trip or to through the oven for reseasoning they went right back in service, and that was the only special treatment they ever got.
So it was really weird to me when I got older and got some pans of my own to see people talking about babying their cast iron like they do. I'm a little more careful with my pans than I was with the ones we had in scouts, but not by much. And when I take them camping I'm not above throwing them into the fire to burn off any really stubborn, burnt-on crud.
And at the end of the day, there's not much that you can realistically do to a cast iron pan that you can't fix with some sandpaper and elbow grease and a quick reseasoning.
*At one point, we somehow ended up with an aluminum griddle in one of our cook kits. It was a pretty much indistinguishable from our iron ones except that it weighed less, it was a pretty solid griddle. On one camping trip it was left on the fire after breakfast, and I don't know exactly how it came to pass because it was another patrol, but they somehow got the fire up hot enough to melt it. I still have a blob of aluminum somewhere that we fished out of the ashes.
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I currently use (probably too many) paper towels to absorb the oil and then toss them into the trash can. I'm not happy with this solution, but I don't want to pour it down the drain.
I found this the other day https://fryaway.co/ but I haven't tried it yet. It's supposed to make the oil solid so you can more easily toss it.
Looks interesting but not at that price point for me. Seems more expensive than paper towels and probably worse overall for the environment since it'd be heavier than paper towel to transport to the store.
Would be interesting to compare the carbon footprint.
I also like how nowhere on the page did it compare it to paper toweling it into the trash. Just pouring it down a sink or putting it in a jar lol. That's marketing -
If it cools into a solid fat then it goes in a bowl and put it outside for wildlife to enjoy some easy calories. A trail cam and some time has given me a good chunk of backyard nocturnal drama, like the falling out of two tomcats.
Liquid fat/oil is used to re-season pans or soaked up with a paper towel and dumped.
Man, living in a house sounds so cool sometimes 🥲
