Can I Eat This: Use 1.5 year old frozen suet in a Christmas Pudding?

December 5, 2016 2:05 PM

I have 1.5 year old (from about July 2015) frozen beef suet in my freezer. It's vacuum packed, never been opened or defrosted, and I need to get started on a Christmas Pudding. Is the old suet safe? If so, will it have any negative effects on the pudding?

I bought some new suet today just in case, but it's less processed, and will need to be frozen, grated, and the icky bits picked out.

I'm going to take a bit of the old suet and defrost and inspect it, and my guess is it's probably safe given that it's basically just fat, but on the other hand, poisoning your Christmas guests isn't a good look. Plus I'm going on a week long road trip a couple of days after, and missing that due to thrifty pudding laziness would be extremely annoying. Should I risk it?

posted by Jon Mitchell to Food & Drink (6 answers total)

It's fine. Usually one throws out long term frozen steaks and other beef products after a year because of quality concerns once it's cooked up (texture, off-smells, freezer burn), not because there are concerns about safety or "poison" from the long term frozen storage. There's no worry about any of those things in a suet/pudding context.
posted by Karaage at 2:12 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Yeah, it's safe, but make sure it hasn't gone rancid BEFORE you use it. Signed, my mother made tamales with rancid lard once and it was a lot of work for gross tamales that no one ate. Rancidity won't hurt you, but it's gross. It should smell or taste "off."
posted by fiercecupcake at 2:17 PM on December 5, 2016 [4 favorites]

Fat freezes very well because it has so little moisture in it. As long as it hasn't picked up any off flavors from other stuff in the freezer I would use it.
posted by backseatpilot at 2:36 PM on December 5, 2016

I agree with you and everyone else. It's absolutely not going to poison anyone, but there's an outside possibility it might not taste good. Maybe fry a small piece of bread in the portion you extract for checking, and taste that. That should help you be sure that it hasn't picked up any weird tastes in the freezer. From your description of storage conditions I'm well nigh certain it will be fine, though.
posted by howfar at 3:43 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Very low risk, IMO. I do join with the others in advising that you check it for rancidity before you mix it all into your pudding. Take a little bit and heat it up. It's a lot easier to tell if it's rancid when it's warm.
posted by Bruce H. at 3:45 PM on December 5, 2016

Response by poster: I heated it up and gave it a taste test. It tasted basically fine, but not as neutral or pleasant as the new stuff - a little beefier than I would ideally like - so I tossed it. I'm sure it would've been OK, but since the new stuff froze quickly enough to grate OK, I erred on the side of caution. Thanks all!
posted by Jon Mitchell at 4:34 PM on December 5, 2016 [2 favorites]