Easy Lard Recipe
For busy people who multitask!
The best fat from the pigs comes from around the kidney area and it is call leaf fat. Use only the fat from pastured and organic pigs. Or, at least make sure the animals was not raised with medicated feed(antibiotics), hormones or GMO feed. All these things accumulate in the fat, so if the animal is eating GMO’s and drugs, then the fat will contain an accumulation of GMO’s and drugs. You don’t want that!
This is how I Render Lard. Its easy and you can walk away from the oven, you don’t need to hover. I have a lot to do most days, so this recipe helps me to be productive while I am making lard.
Pre-heat oven to 275
I put the pig fat in a roasting pan, and usually render 10 or 12lbs at a time, from frozen, right out of the bag. (we sell 3lb bags of Leaf Fat for $5.00 a bag)
I don’t cut it in cubes, or slice it or do anything fancy with it because I don’t have time.
Roast it with the lid on until the fat is melted into liquid, for 12lbs, about 3 hours. As it melts, keep draining the fat off. I use a fine stainless steel sieve.
Before staining, be sure the pieces of pork attached on the fat are fully cooked; you want to be sure they are cooked fully before removing any liquid. Safety First!
Poke holes in the remaining solid fat to help it melt. There will always be a membrane, on the skin side of the fat that will not melt.
Don’t roast the fat for too long at too high a temperature or you will burn it or start the house on fire. Its best to avoid this!
Strain off most of the fat first, then you can turn the remaining solid peics of fat into something amazing!
Turn the oven up to 350 and fry’s the remaining solid fat until it is brown and crispy this is what is called “cracklins”, very popular in the southern states in the US. (you should keep an eye on it, don’t leave the house or walk away to far!)
You can eat it as is with a little sea salt. Its the original pork rind chip, or sweeten it up with sugar and cinnamon and add it to ice cream or the top of a caramel cake or dessert. Ooohh, imagine it as the top of a coffee cake, yumm!
Or you can cook with it, add it to meat balls, homemade burger patties, or break it into small pieces and add it to chocolate chip cookies, so yummy! (add some bacon and pecans to your chocolate chip cookies too for an epic treat!) Recipe coming soon!
I strain the fat right out of the roasting pan through a stainless steel fine sieve into a pyrex pan, 8″ by 13″ . (forget putting it in jars, who has time to wash jars and lids to put it in, then wash them all again when they are empty. I say use 1 pan, easy. quick. done!)
I put the pyrex pans in the freezer after they have started to solidify. (so you don’t spill it on your way to the freezer) I usually get 2 or 3 pyrex pans per batch.
Once they are hard, but not frozen through. I pop the solid sheet of lard out of the pan onto parchment paper on the cutting board or on the counter, slice it into bars, and wrap it in parchment or you can use plastic wrap (I don’t) tin foil works too, and put it back in the freezer.
The lard will be a lovely snow white colour and it stays solid, not firmly, at room temperature. I take out a bar when I need it. Good in the freezer for a year.
It keeps in the fridge for a long time too, over a month for sure. I am not sure how long it will keep in the fridge as it never lasts very long here.
We use it to fry eggs, or fry anything, in some baking, or add it to recipes for flavour.
I use it to deep fry as well. French fries are my weakness!
I’ll put some pics up when I can! Gotta go pick beans in the garden! Have a great day!
Cindy
