Anybody who wants to make truly authentic Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine must first learn how to make schmaltz and gribenes. Schmaltz is rendered chicken fat, which is an important component of many traditional recipes. Sometimes referred to as “Jewish bacon,” gribenes are crispy, salty, sinfully delicious morsels, a byproduct of the fat rendering process.
To the modern health-conscious cook, schmaltz and gribenes might sound like a heart attack waiting to happen. Schmaltz is a high cholesterol fat, but it adds a very unique flavor to dishes that is unmatched by any other type of oil. While many people find gribenes delicious, others might consider them too strange or unhealthy to enjoy.
Take them or leave them, schmaltz and gribenes are quintessentially Jewish. Schmaltz in particular adds an authentic flavor to many Ashkenazi Jewish recipes, including matzo balls and chopped liver.
Though richly flavored, both schmaltz and gribenes were born of frugality. In Eastern European countries, chicken meat was an expensive treat. When a chicken was purchased from the butcher, every part of the bird was used. Schmaltz and gribenes are two creative ways of using parts of the chicken that might otherwise be thrown away.
Schmaltz is collected by slowly sautéing chicken skin and fat, then collecting the liquid fat that melts as it cooks. Most of the time onion is added to the mix, which flavors the schmaltz and makes the gribenes extra tasty.
As the schmaltz collects, the chicken skin, fat, and onion to produce a batch of crispy little gribenes. They can be snacked on as-is or added as a condiment to other dishes.
You might be wondering, “Where do I get a whole pound of chicken skin and fat?” Well, you can collect it from your everyday chicken recipes (store it in the freezer and thaw before using). You can try asking your butcher if they have any for sale. Or, you can buy a bunch of bone-in skin-on chicken thighs, which are the fattiest cut of the chicken. Remove the fat and skin, then reserve the thighs for another dish.
As for rendering the fat, I have outlined two easy methods below. You can also collect schmaltz by cooling chicken soup in the refrigerator, then skimming the solid fat that rises to the top.
If you’re a fan of schmaltz and gribenes, most likely you grew up on chopped liver. Check out my recipe here, which incorporates both schmaltz and gribenes in the mix.
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Schmaltz and Gribenes
Ingredients
- 1 pound chicken skin and fat, cut into narrow 1/2 inch pieces
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 medium onion, sliced into thin 1/4 inch pieces
NOTES
Instructions
Skillet Method
- Rinse the pound of chicken skin and fat, pat dry, then chop it into small 1/2 inch pieces.
- Toss the chicken skin pieces with 1 tsp kosher salt and 1/4 tsp black pepper. Place the skin and fat into a skillet on the stovetop (make sure it's cast iron or nonstick!) and turn heat to medium low. Cover the skillet and let it cook on medium low for about 15 minutes. Liquid fat will start to pool at the bottom of the skillet.
- Uncover the skillet and raise heat to medium. At this point you can add onion, which will give you an onion-flavored darker colored schmaltz, or you can render the fat without onion for a cleaner, purer fat with no onion essence. Most Jewish cooks prefer to render the fat with onion. Let the skin and fat cook for another 15-20 minutes, breaking the pieces apart with a spatula and stirring frequently, until the skin starts to brown and curl at the edges. At this point there should be quite a bit of liquid fat at the bottom of the pan—this liquid is your schmaltz.
- Remove pan from heat. Pour the schmaltz from the skillet into a container, using a mesh strainer to catch any small pieces of skin. A golden oil will result—this is called schmaltz. It can be used in a variety of Jewish dishes or as a cooking fat.
- If you cooked the onions as the fat rendered, your oil will be a darker golden color with an orange hue. The schmaltz will stay liquid at room temperature; it will become solid and opaque if you refrigerate it.
- If you cooked the skin and onion together, return to medium heat and continue cooking in the skillet until the skin is deeply golden, curled and crispy, and the onions are dark brown. Drain on a paper towel and serve.
- If you did not cook the onions with the skin, you can cook them after the schmaltz is collected. Return the cooked chicken skin and fat to the skillet.
- Turn heat to medium and sauté the mixture for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently. Don’t leave them alone for long or they’ll burn! Adjust heat lower as needed to keep from blackening too much.When pieces are dark brown and crispy, remove the gribenes from the skillet with a slotted spoon and drain them on a paper towel. They become crispier as they cool.
- Gribenes can be snacked on as-is or added to other dishes as a topping.
Baking Sheet Method
- Rinse the pound of chicken skin and fat, pat dry, then chop it into small 1/2 inch pieces.Cut your onions into slices, then cut slices into pieces around 1/4 inch long.
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Toss the chicken skin and fat with 1 tsp kosher salt and 1/4 tsp black pepper, then spread it out into a single layer on an ungreased baking sheet.
- Place baking sheet in the oven and let it roast for 20 minutes, until the skin starts to turn golden and curl at the edges. Fat will have started collecting on the sheet.
- Add onions to the hot baking sheet, spreading them out evenly throughout the chicken skin.
- Return to oven and continue roasting for another 40-50 minutes until the skin is golden brown and crispy and the onions are dark brown. When stirring, make sure to move the pieces on the outside towards the center, and move the center pieces out towards the middle, so the pieces evenly brown.
- When the pieces become crispy, remove from the oven and let the tray cool down. Strain the fat from the tray through a mesh strainer into a collection container.
- The gribenes are delicious to snack on or used as a topping. The schmaltz should be saved and used in a variety of savory dishes. In will keep for several weeks in the refrigerator.
marty says
Up until I reached my teens I enjoyed grebenes both as a snack and mashed into my mashed potatoes and chopped liver, Then some spoilsport said to me schmaltz and grebenes have killed more Jews than Hilter. I have just turned 77 and as I write this my saved chicken fat and skin are being made. Why not?
Malka says
Marty-
I’m two years late to the party but I was 80 on May 2 (2013) and gribenes are my pork rinds. Schmaltz keeps me beautiful and strong. Cholesterol is a goyish plot.
Frances says
I agree with you and Malka. I just started a low carb, high fat diet to combat diabetes, and fat is saving my life. I need all the schmaltz and gribenes I can make. Hope to make it to 77 and 80 and beyond.
Andrea says
Tori,
I recently discovered your blog and love it. I checked out some of the recipes and am anxious to try them. If there are any recipes you need, let me know since I do have a pretty good collection.
sherri dudek says
Hi andrea…i just found this blog…my grandma s recipe for challah, with no measurements of course, has been lost with her passing in the ’70’s…might you have one you dont mind sharing? Bless you for you help.
Sherri …thank you again…
Angela says
I wish our meat markets around here processed their own chickens…I would so like to do this without having to remove the skin from any other chicken that I would normally eat skin on. I could see this becoming an addiction easily.
Judy says
Jenn, the last I knew you can get corn rye at Zabar’s in Manhattan. Good luck. I remember it so fondly.
Jodi Shaw says
One of my favorite memories from childhood was my Nana making schmaltz, then gribenes, but she didn’t cook it till it was crunchy. Instead, she cooked until the onions were transparent & then added chopped hard boiled eggs & we ate the mix on matzo. To this day, I make it every time I render my schmaltz!
myrna says
My grandmother made these all the time – and kept the griben in a coffee can – my afterschool snack was smalz and griben on pumperknickel – On a recent trip to Poland, you can buy griben made with goosefat and in addition to the onions a bit of dried apple is added in – yum!
Peg Durham says
Dear Tori,
Love your website! I lived in NYC and suburbs for 15 years and miss the Jewish deli scene terribly. Make my own latkes and serve them with applesauce. Love stuffed “cabbitch”. I worked side by side wth a Latvian Jew who escaped death in a German concentration. He paid me one of the nicest complements after overhearing me handle a tough question from a customer — he said, “Peg, you’re too “schmart” to be a shiksa!” (His tongue was buried in his cheek . . .)
Best to you, Peg Durham, St. George, Utah
Tori Avey says
Sheila, great idea on the microwave render, I’ll have to try that next time!
Peg, thanks for the kind comment! Happy you are enjoying the site! 🙂
Jenn says
I think I’ll start saving chicken fat and skin right away! Corn rye…I live in Brooklyn and still haven’t seen corn rye for a very long time.
Sheila says
I now make my schmaltz w/gribenes in the microwave! I use a 4 cup glass measuring cup and it works fine! Renders faster and much easier to clean up.
BTW Borscht in jars is available in west central Florida at Pubix. If for any reason your store doesn’t stock it, just ask the manager and they will get it for you!
John The Goy says
Lovin’ the Shiksa.com!
I have been making Matzo Ball soup forever and always prefer my soup from scratch; boiled chicken, boiled bones & veges, etc
I love my Schmaltz, it is my favorite kitchen create. After I make my chicken soup from scratch, I recover lots of flavorful schmaltz from the top of my jars and save to smaller jars and wondered today how long it would last beyond my smell test. Thanks for the answers.
Good Nosh!
Moshe Feder says
Fellow schmaltz lovers might be interested to learn that although it and rendered chicken fat have been synonymous for the last century or so, our Ashkenazi ancestors in eastern Europe usually made it out of GOOSE fat, which must really have been amazing!
Although I’ve been eating Jewish food for 59 years, I only learned this recently from a book I think Tori and all her fans will enjoy called 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement by Jane Ziegelman, which came out in June from Smithsonian Press.
97 Orchard Street is the address of the building that is now New York’s Tenement museum. So in addition to Jewish food, the book offers fascinating history about the foodways of Germans, Irish, and Italian immigrants too.
Tori Avey says
Moshe, I actually read 97 Orchard! Picked up my copy at the Tenement Museum. It’s a great book! Hoping to blog about it soon…
Marisa says
What an awesome site! I ran across it after the google search “can you freeze schmaltz”. Will definitely be checking back in! L’shana tova!
Red says
How long does Schmaltz stay good in the refrigerator? I remember my mom kept it for a long time.
Tori Avey says
Red, schmaltz keeps well in the refrigerator. Like most cooking fats, it has an impressive shelf life. The longest I’ve kept it is about a month (I tend to use it up quickly when I have it on hand). You can probably keep it even longer if the container you store it in is sterile and you use a sterile tool when removing some from the jar– this will help you avoid cross contamination. You can also freeze the schmaltz. This will extend the shelf life even longer!
DD says
I freeze mine in ziploc bags (flat until they can stack nicely) and they are good for 1 year!!! (they never last that long b/c I use them!!!) I have a rotating stock. I am so glad I found this page!!! 🙂
Susan Yeager says
hi tori,
wow everything looks fab. hope you had a wonderfultime(looks like you did)
just wondering when i’ll receive your cookbook? my friends and family are waiting to see my name and kugel recipe immortalized .lol i know they will want to purchase books of their own.please respond to my comment thank you
sincerely,susan yeager
Tori Avey says
Hi Susan, as soon as the cookbook is published we will notify everybody on my website and blog– and as a recipe contributor, you will receive your own copy in the mail upon publication. 😉
Tori Avey says
Lydia, sometimes I do it the way your mom does, too. I prefer the method I described in the blog because it gives a clear, golden schmaltz– and you can add onions to it if you want that oniony flavor. When I use the onions in rendering the schmaltz, it tends to be darker in color and needs more straining. But that doesn’t really matter for most savory dishes. Either method works great! 🙂
Lydia Eagle Kaplan says
My mother made schmaltz and gribenes but didn’t separate them. She put the onions right in with the chicken fat and skin and that way, the onions gave the schmaltz a wonderful flavor. I still make schmaltz that way. I use it for knaidlach, chopped liver, and a delicious Passover matzah farfel kugel.
BETH EISENMAN BUCCARONI says
yummy: Try living in the west central coast of Florida you cant get schav or borchut in the super market. Have a friend bring cases wheen she comes from NY also 4 dozen bagels.
Basha
el greene says
Haven’t even thought of this in years and years…..but I saw someone say they eat it on “corn rye”! There is no corn rye outside of the new york metro area! Come from Brooklyn originally, then moved to NJ, where, yes, we could get corn rye, but not in North Carolina!!! Help!
alan says
you can fly in rye bread and pastrami parachuted in from 2nd avenue deli in nyc i do it here in arizona.
Phil Goldwasser says
My mother always uses shmaltz in her matza balls. I would not want them any other way. I have done so in the past as well, but now I mostly use oil. In some Kosher Butcher shops you can buy rendered shmaltz. Makes things very easy!
Annette says
Where can I buy already made chicken schmaltz?
Thank You
Tori Avey says
Hi Annette, most kosher markets carry it in the frozen section.