Now We’re Cooking With Fat

How Animal Fats Can Improve Your Cooking — & Your Diet

It’s no secret that fat has got a bad rap. In the 1980s, fat-free food became all the rage, and fat has been battling an unfair reputation ever since. Here at GPA Wholefoods, we’re big fans of natural fats and all the benefits they have to offer. Our Lard, Beef Dripping and Duck Fat range is stuffed with nutrient-dense, heart-healthy options. Fat-free foods are packed with sugar to compensate for the lack of taste; why not add something more natural to your pantry instead?

Fat Isn’t the Enemy

When you cook your family’s meals with animal-based fats, you’re adding a multitude of benefits to every dish — from health to flavour. To start with, animal fats are rich in essential nutrients like fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K. These vital vitamins are needed for all sorts of bodily functions, including immune support, bone health and vision.

Plus, animal fats provide a stable source of energy, keeping you going all day long. Unlike sugar, which gives you a big high and an even bigger crash, these healthy fats provide sustained energy. Fat also contributes to satiety, which essentially means that meals cooked with animal fats will keep you feeling fuller longer and help keep cravings at bay.

Beyond their health benefits, animal fats are also incredibly delicious. Enhancing the flavour and texture of your cooking, animal fat can take your culinary creations from yum to ‘yippee!’. If you’ve ever had chips fried in tallow, you’ll already know how much tastier animal fats are compared to canola oil.

Boasting a high smoke point, animal fats are ideal for cooking at high temperatures without the risk of oxidation or the formation of harmful compounds. When oils and fats are heated past their smoke point, the fat starts to break down, releasing free radicals into your food. A higher smoke point equals less chance of a burnt, acrid taste in your cooking.

Animal fats make it easy to load up your weeknight dinners with plenty of taste — and even more nutrition.

How Do I Use Fat?

Before we jump into all the tasty ways you can use animal fats in your cooking, let’s discuss a lesser-known use: beauty.

Beef tallow is a brilliant ingredient to add to your homemade skincare and haircare products. Perfect for anyone with extra dry skin, grass-fed beef tallow has a thick consistency that easily absorbs into the skin. Loaded with vitamins, antioxidants and essential fatty acids (helpful for inflammation and skin repair), it’s also great for making soothing soaps. Whether you rub pure beef tallow into your skin or run it through the dry ends of your hair, this animal fat will leave you looking soft and smooth.

Back to cooking, the most common use of animal fat: you can easily substitute the oil in your favourite recipes for animal fats. Almost anything that butter and olive oil can do, animal fat can do better.

Beef dripping has a lovely savoury flavour, making it ideal for roasting winter veggies or frying chips.

Lard has a delightfully nutty flavour. Give it a try the next time you cook a ‘big breakfast’; few things are as delicious as eggs and bacon fried up in some lard. Don’t let the name and bad reputation fool you — lard is a wonderful source of HDL (good) cholesterol, which doesn’t contribute to blood cholesterol levels.

Duck fat is one of our best sellers. With a rich, silky mouthfeel and a subtly umami flavour, duck fat improves your other ingredients without overpowering them. A confit duck leg is nothing without the meat being gorgeously submerged in the golden, fatty goodness. Duck fat is also the secret to the crispiest, most delicious potatoes you’ve ever had. If you’re only going to try one type of animal fat when first starting out, you should add duck — the most versatile choice — to your storecupboard.

The Best-Ever Duck Fat Roasted Potatoes

No Sunday roast would be complete without a tray of gleaming roasties. With a glass-like crispy crust and a pillowy, soft inside, duck fat roasted potatoes are a must-do side dish. Every great duck fat potato recipe will contain the same essential steps: a gentle parboil, followed by roughing up the edges for added crispiness, then roasting in a ripping hot tray.

This is how we make our favourite roast potatoes:

Ingredients

1. 2kg Medium-Sized Potatoes
2. 200g Tassie Tallow Duck Fat
3. Optional: salt; stock; hardy herbs like rosemary and thyme

Instructions

1. Peel your potatoes, then chop them in half. You need them to be a bit bigger than bite-size so that they’ll hold up under a bit of rough handling.
2. Preheat your oven to 230°C.
3. Prepare a large pot of boiling water. Add your potatoes and boil for 10 minutes. To allow more flavour to penetrate the potatoes, we like to add some salt, stock and herbs to the boiling water.
4. Drain the potatoes and return them to the pot. With the lid on, give the potatoes a bit of a shake, making sure to rough up the surface without breaking them apart.
5. Let the roughed-up potatoes sit in the pot with the lid off for up to 10 minutes to steam off excess water.
6. Salt your potatoes to your preference.
7. Pour Tassie Tallow Duck Fat into a heavy-based roasting pan, and heat it up in the oven until the fat is liquid and ripping hot (usually around 5 minutes).
8. Using oven mitts, remove the pan from the oven and carefully add your potatoes. You want to coat them in the golden fat and then leave them with the cut side facing down. Note: the hot oil can splatter if water’s still in your potatoes. You might like to use tongs and a mitt to protect your hands.
9. Roast your potatoes for 20 minutes. Turn the potatoes, then roast for a further 20 minutes.
10. Turn them one final time and roast them for another 15 minutes. You want them to be a dark, golden brown with crispy edges.
11. Serve hot and enjoy!

Make the Switch to Animal Fat Today

For delicious, nutrient-dense food, there’s no better ingredient than animal fat. With a whole host of uses, these versatile fats are total crowd-pleasers. Offering lard, dripping, duck fat, and tallow, GPA Wholefoods has all the options you could need. Contact us for help picking the right ingredient, or shop online today.