A good broth or stew is the backbone of pancreatitis cooking, but even a lean cut leaves a film of fat floating on top, and over a big pot that adds up to grams you did not budget for. The good news is that fat floats, which makes it the easiest thing in the kitchen to remove if you know the tricks. Here are the three I use, from best to quickest.
The best one is chill and lift. Cool the soup or stew, get it into the fridge, and leave it overnight. The fat rises to the top and sets into a solid layer you can lift straight off with a spoon the next morning. It comes away clean, and you can see exactly how much fat you just removed. This is the single most effective fat-reduction move there is, and it costs you nothing but a night’s wait. It is the reason batch cooking and low-fat eating go together so well.
The second is the ladle-and-tilt. If you need to eat now and cannot wait for the fridge, tilt the pot so the liquid pools to one side. The fat gathers at the surface of the pool. Skim across the top with a wide spoon or a ladle held just at the surface, lifting off the shiny layer and leaving the broth below. Repeat a few times. It will not get every trace, but it takes the bulk of it.
The third is the ice trick, for small amounts. Drop a couple of ice cubes into the pot, or wrap an ice cube in kitchen paper and skim it across the surface. The fat clings to the cold cube and the paper. Lift it out before the ice melts much. Quick, and handy for the last film after you have ladled the rest off.
Stepan’s Rule: Cook your soups and stews a day ahead on purpose. The overnight chill in the fridge is not a delay, it is the fat-removal step. You wake up to a leaner pot than you went to bed with.
A food-safety note that matters, because “chill overnight” trips people up. Do not leave a hot pot out on the counter all night to cool. Cool it quickly, within about two hours, then refrigerate. To cool fast, sit the pot in a sink of cold water, or split a big batch into shallow containers. Leaving cooked food at room temperature for hours is how you get a stomach bug, and a stomach bug is the last thing a pancreatitis gut needs.
One more thing worth knowing: a cheap fat separator jug, the kind with a spout from the bottom, pours the broth out from underneath and leaves the fat behind. A few euros, lasts forever, useful every week.
Patient experience, not medical advice.
The fat budget that makes all of this matter, the why behind chasing those grams, is laid out fully in the book.