Yeah, Still Not

      Just not dealing with it. Politics, pandemics, economics and European war, it totals up to more than I can bear.

      Let's talk about grease separators, instead!  I own one, a big two-cup job, that I haven't had much use for.  A lot of the time, it's easier to pour the grease off while browning and add broth or tomato sauce after, taking my chances with what residue remains.

      Over the weekend, I made a big pot of oxtail and beef shank stew.  Very tasty and I was able to let it simmer for hours.  But it's so greasy, even if you pour off the fat while browning the meat.  The grease separator caught my attention and, well, of course.

      Using the grease separator while cooking -- and cooking with much more than two cups of broth -- is an imperfect process but it still works well: ladle out a couple of cups of broth, let it settle, and either add the grease-free broth back to the pot or put it in another container while you reload the separator, and then pour the defatted broth back in.  The end result loses nothing for flavor and is far less greasy.  A couple of iterations removed sufficient grease that after freezing for the next day, there was almost no grease at the top of the frozen stew when I took it out to thaw.

      Why did I wait so long to try this?

      Oh, one more note: there are few things more satisfying than fishing a big oxtail out of the pot and having the meat fall off in shreds as it clears the surface.  Almost no trimming required.  And I started with nearly-frozen meat.