Posted on 12/12/2010 8:45:11 AM PST by Red_Devil 232
You WHAT?!" said my friend, making the most disgusted face I've seen someone make in some time. I rendered some lard over the weekend, I repeated. "WHY on EARTH would you want to do THAT?!" she cried.
I wasn't surprised. North American culture is so fat-phobic we demonize some of the very foods that are best for us, and among those foods is homemade lard. The store stuff isn't worth bothering with; it's hydrogenated to make it shelf-stable. What I'm talking about is lard from the fat of well-raised pigs, not factory farmed pigs. To get it, you're going to have to make it yourself. Luckily, that's not hard.
What you don't know about lard
Not only does lard make the best pie crusts, it's lower in saturated fat than butter--if saturated fat bothers you. It doesn't bother me, in fact, the plaque levels in my heart have actually improved since I've started eating good saturated fats. (They've actually gone and looked, so I feel safe in saying this.)
Technically lard isn't even a saturated fat; it's a monounsaturated fat. And it's one of the best dietary sources of vitamin D. It also contains no trans-fats. If there's fat to be avoided, trans-fats are the ones.
Finding fat
The hardest part of making lard is finding a good source of pork fat. You're going to have to do a little digging, and it's important that you not just use any pork fat you find; you want to make sure the pig was properly cared for and fed right. Your average supermarket "butcher," and I use that term loosely, isn't going to have it; that pork is all factory farmed, and very few supermarket butchers cut whole carcasses any more. You may have more luck at a specialty market like Whole Foods, Wild Oats or the like, but be sure to inquire after the feeding practices.
If there is a farmer's market near you, look around and ask questions. That's how we stumbled onto our farmer, who is really in the goat cheese biz; he raises pigs on the leftover whey. We've bought two (incredibly delicious) pigs from him in as many years, and surprised the butcher by asking for all of the fat--and as much of the offal as we could get, but that's another article. Hey, we were paying for it. If you don't have a farmer's market, try EatWild.com where you can find farmers with good growing practices, and not just for meat.
Making it
Once you've found your fat, decide what you want to use it for. If you want it for pastries, try to find and use only the fat from around the kidneys--what's called "leaf" lard. I don't make much pastry, so I don't care about that.
Chop the fat into at least 1" cubes, taking any meat chunks off in the process. Some folks put it through a meat grinder. In any event, you want small pieces; otherwise you won't get as much fat out.
Heat your oven to 225°F. I use my cast iron dutch oven to render lard in. Put about a quarter-inch of water at the bottom of the pot; this keeps the fat from browning too much at the beginning, and it'll burn off in time. Add your chopped-up fat. Pop it in the oven for at least a couple of hours, stirring now and then. Eventually the chunks won't give up any more fat--it'll become obvious, the chunks will look the same after an hour as they did before.
As you're doing all this there will be a distinct smell. Some people like it, some people don't. It's a little too intense for my comfort, frankly, which is why I try to do a bunch of lard at once. If you can do this outside, or in a canning kitchen if you have one, so much the better.
Let the lard cool to lukewarm; while it's cooling is a good time to gather up your jars and lids and make sure they're clean and ready to go. There are various methods to filter out the bits of meat and unrendered fat--the cracklings--from the lard, but what I use is a paper coffee filter and cone. Ladle the still-liquid lard, skipping the bigger chunks, into the filter.
Refrigerate the lard and use it within a month. If you've made more than you can use in a month, it freezes well.
Using it
Use it anywhere you'd use butter or shortening: To pop popcorn (the best!); to make pie crust; to fry eggs. In some cultures it's even spread on bread, topped with onions and salt, and called a sandwich. As for the leftover bits, the cracklings? Salt them and put them on salads or just munch on them. Josie loves them. We got more cracklings than we could eat, so we fed a lot of them to the chickens and used them as doggie and kitty treats.
Raw gease / lanolin from sheep’s wool burns and stings like a #@%#^$&^! It’s like waxy lemon juice to any cuts on my hands.
Little late posting on this (What’s three years among friends?)
One of my earliest memories is making lard with my mother and grandmother. I was about 4. My uncle was a professional butcher. We raised our own pigs, cattle, chickens, horses, you name it. When we killed a hog, Uncle Marvin would butcher it for a portion of the meat as payment for his skills. It was how families and neighbors did things then.
While my dad and uncle rendered the hog (had to wait until late November when it was cool enough) momma and grandmother built a fire under an old cast iron pot that had been in the family for hundreds. I got to help cut up the fat in little squares and the stir the pot while the fat was cooked to release the lard.
Cracklings and lard is the end result. The lard was poured in the gallon buckets and cooled before being sealed.
Now those cracklings were a treat! We’d season them and eat for snacks or mother would grind them into tiny bits and add to her cornbread. Oh boy that was good eating! BTW, my grandfather lived to be 98 (my grandmother was killed in a car wreck when I was 5; this about the only memory I have of her), both my parents lived to their late 80s with ZERO heart problems.
PING!
Science be damned, I suppose.
LOL
*ZING*
Nothing worse than a smarmy vegetarian!
My Great Grandparents used it for everything, and lived into their late 90s.
Just beware that lots of pork is laden with nitrates today. Still, it beats canola oil. ☺
LOL
My grandparents used it too.
I remember my Memere would “lard” a lean roast for more flavor.
True about the nitrates nowadays, though.
What?!!! You ate a fried egg?!!
"Thats right, and I dipped the toast in the yolk slathered in butter.."
Pure Tung oil is classed as a drying oil along with pure linseed oil. Pure Tung Oil is approved for food contact by the FDA as is pure lindseed oil.
Yes, peanut oil is a good hi-temp oil. Used in Chinese woks, and you know those can get hot.
Many years ago when i lived down in Tampa, I was having lunch at a Steak n Shake, and the manager offered ey some free fries. They were testing frying them in peanut oil.
Very tasty.
A sensible person will avoid Crisco and use Pork lard.
The Mexicans sell it as “manteca”
Its better for you and adds a savory component even to baked goods
LOL!
Looks like my kinda book!
Coconut oil is healthy but olive oil is unhealthy?
If you had bothered to check your own “research” you may have noticed that coconut oil’s smoke point is no less than 50 degrees lower than nearly all varieties of olive oil. Coconut oil has a similar smoke point to olive oil only when it is refined (creating more trans fatty acids). Note that the majority of coconut oils used for cooking are unrefined.
Olive oil, at least quality virgin and extra-virgin, will keep at least 9 months after opening (and often a year or more). I have never had a problem with rancidity in olive oil. 99.99% of people who use olive oil will also not have a problem because they will typically use the oil they buy within 9 months. Cooking, by the way, does not cause rancidity. Cooking with oil makes no difference unless you want to re-use the oil, at which point it will drop the smoke point. While no oils can really be considered truly “healthy” olive oil is one of the few that would qualify. Also, you may note that rancid oil is not a health hazard.
All oils, including coconut, will go rancid at some point depending on the conditions. As I pointed out above, its smoke point is lower than most other cooking oils. I have no idea what you mean when you suggest that coconut oil is “super healthy,” though it’s clearly not the same thing that the FDA, WHO, and American Heart Association think about the subject.
I guess the only thing correct about your post was that coconut oil is good for skin and hair.
Salt pork. Makes beans good.
Mighty high falutin’ words form somebody from OHIO..
LOL
Redneck som gun but humorous as can be.
always had his finger on the pulse of America LoL
Author of “Elvis is dead, and I don’t feel so good myself” as well as “If Love was Oil it be 2 quarts shy”
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