Triumphrob

Found a great British recipe page, but some recipes call for Suet. Anyone know the equivelent here in the (Atlanta) USA?
Sorry if this has been asked before
Rob

Bob

thread - http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=333801

plenty of info there...

Pulaski

Bob, I think that you linked to the wrong thread - I could see no mention of suet.

cindyabs

So for a purist on suet-what's the difference between the suet we get here in the US and in the UK? I can remember my mother asking the guy in the meat department for suet-we used it to feed the birds in the winter time.

Lion in Winter

I"ve never found suet here, except in British import stores and pet shops.

I've only ever found various vegetable oil concoctions.

Pulaski

You get suet? In the US? ..... WHERE?!

Suet is suet is suet - except when it the b@stardized abomination that Atora markets as "vegetable suet" which makes about as much sense as selling soya protein as "vegetable steak".

Suet is a very hard fat that come from around a cows internal organs. It should be possible to buy it from a butcher, if you can find one, as it is an inevitable product of butchering a cow, but as Americans don't seem to use it, it never makes it from the slaughterhouse to "the grocery". Also, as Atora's "proper" suet is part of a dead cow, importing it from the UK is not possible.

Lion in Winter

My question exactly.

Although I just had a thought - try a Mexican grocery and look for manteca. Not as hard as suet, but at least it's beef fat. Or is it pig fat, can't remember?

Pulaski

That would be "vegetable suet".

Lion in Winter

Well cows are vegetarian...........

BrandonBrit

I know a guy that ordere (quite a lot) of suet recently, let me get back to you on where he ordered it from, I know it was on line. In fact, maybe he'd want to sell some of it?

cindyabs

I found this in a message board for recipes under Christmas Plum pudding-

"Great recipe! Better than the store bought ones! You can get the shredded vegetarian suet online at http://www.expatshopping.com/. The brand name is Atora. It works great in this recipe and in any traditional British pudding recipe. Sultanas are basically similar to plump baking raisens"

Maybe that's it.

Other folks on the board, to include an ExPat siad she used Crisco in place of the suet.

paddingtongreen

In the UK, you get suet that has been cleaned, put through a grinder and nicely packaged. Our supermarket sometimes has it in lumps from the butchers, but they tend to put ordinary fat out and call it suet also.

We have one butchers near here where they do their own cutting and we got real suet from there, I put it through the grinder and the package small amounts and freeze them. Also get kidney there, for steak and kidney pudding.

paddingtongreen

Sultanas are "Golden Raisins". We hadn't been married long, when my wife sent me out to get some sultanas. Several hours later, having searched every brand of supermarket in vain, I went home to admit failure, only to be greeted with falling on the floor laughter and an apology for not telling me to get golden raisins.

cindyabs

We used to buy the plum pudding in a tin when I was a kid-think it was Crosse and Blackwell-and then make hard sauce to serve on it, and yes it was only served at Christmas dinner.

cindyabs

Notice I said as a kid I remember this-that was in the days when grocery stores processed their own meat, rather than have it shipped to them as a finished product.

I would think IF you could find a butchers around that they would have it.