Anyone who makes homemade soups or sauces will sooner or later encounter a common sight: bubbles of oil floating on top of simmering liquid. Whether it’s from the cooking oil that most recipes require you to add for flavor aroma and a silky soup texture or the fat from meaty ingredients that is rendered during the cooking process a little fat is often unavoidable.
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How to Skim Fat from Stews Using These Surprising Tools | Food Hacks | Well Done
The key word here is “a little” — too much and the dish would be greasy and unappealing. Here’s a clever trick to remove that excess oil in seconds: use an ice-filled ladle! When you run a chilled ice-filled ladle over the liquid the cold temperature causes the fat to solidify and stick to the back of the utensil making it easy to scoop out and discard. This handy technique isn’t just for home cooks — it’s also a favorite at hot pot restaurants to keep their soup bases light and flavorful. So the next time you’re cooking and you don’t have a slotted spoon keep this handy trick in mind!
The secret lies in how fats and oils behave when exposed to cold temperatures. Each type of fat and oil has a specific temperature at which it changes from a liquid to a solid state. When you fill a metal ladle with ice it cools to a temperature low enough that most common cooking fats and oils will solidify almost instantly. As you glide this icy ladle across the surface of your simmering dish the fat molecules that come into contact with the chilled metal freeze quickly and stick to the back of the ladle.
This process effectively separates the unwanted oil from the rest of the liquid creating a thin "shell" of solidified fat on the surface of the ladle. With a simple wipe of a paper towel you can easily remove this solidified oil leaving behind a much less greasy and more enjoyable dish.
