Two meat related leftover food questions.

[randomness]

Question 1:

I have large bones from the leftovers from two restaurant dishes.

One is a lamb shank from a Greek place.

The other is the large bone from a pork butt, made by a Chinese place.

After stalling for a few days and leaving them in the fridge in the styrofoam containers they came home in I've wrapped them up in foil and put them in the freezer.

I am now wondering if they will work in a soup or stew base, together or separately. (Together, it would be some kind of hunter's stew, with a variety of meats and possibly some sausage.) If so, how would it be best to use them?

Question 2:

I have some of the remaining fat and skin stripped from the pork butt that I would like to prepare in some way, mostly as a snack. I suppose I could fry them up and serve them with something else.

How would it be best to use these?

Comments

[flit]

I save all my animal bones for stock. I don't always separate them, though I generally separate say lamb from chicken. (The strong taste of lamb can overpower chicken.) Bones are also good tucked into a pot of beans or a stew or braise, to enrich the sauce; just remember to fish them out before serving.

If you save all of your veggie scraps, it can be very easy to make stock without even putting extra vegetables in. Onion and garlic skins, herb stems, tomato skins, potato peelings (not green ones), squash guts, all of this can go into stock. The only thing I don't put into the stockpot is trimmings from cruciferous vegetables and anything that is rotten or moldy. (This probably goes without saying.) I like to add celery seed to my stock because we don't use a lot of fresh celery and it can balance the sweetness of squash and onion.

I really like pork fat with beans; I just had some pork chops that had a very thick layer of fat, so I cut that off and put it into a braise of beans and beef shoulder. It came out very nicely!

My favorite use for pork skin is to get it crispy and eat it straight. You can also fry the fat up. (Save the rendered fat for other cooking, and eat the crispy part.)