There weren’t a lot of spices when i had it in a Brazilian restaurant. But i love that cut, and have a couple on my freezer right now.
The Cajun cracklins in the second link of your post are really good. I haven’t had those, but they make something in my area called chicharrones that looks exactly the same (although fried with laurel and unpeeled garlic cloves). They’re best consumed the same day they’re made, preferably still warm from frying. While the fat itself is tasty enough (the sensation is so strong I always have to close my eyes and groan a little), my favorite part are the bits of meat that remain moist and tender for a day or two after they’re made. The way to eat them is in thin slices cut against the grain with a serrated knife. A couple of towns over, they make something entirely different with the same name. As far as I can tell, it’s baked bacon, sliced thin and served cold, with a sprinkling of sea salt and a squeeze of lemon. It’s also really good, especially with ice-cold beer when you’re a little sunburned.
Those two things, good cheese and high-quality olive oil are about the only fatty foods I care for, as foie-gras, cream, chicken skins, etc. make me gag a little.
I ate pig skins for about a year until found out how much fat and sodium went onto the bag.
I enjoy fat. Generally not on it own – it really should have a carb to go with it, or a protein. I’ve been known to nosh on some decent cultured butter on its own or eat a fire-roasted piece of smoked pork fat on its own (like slab bacon, sans any meat), but ideally that would be with a piece of crusty bread as a chaser, at least. Bite of fat. Bite of bread. Oh, actually, cracklings are fine on their own. Loved them since I was a kid.
I, too, am not a fan of canola. You will not see any of it in my house. Soybean oil is also not my favorite. Sunflower is my neutral cooking oil of choice. Extra virgin olive oil has a LOT of flavor and can be a bit like wine in terms of range. Fruity. Grassy. Peppery. Etc. I tend to like my extra virgin oils on the peppery side. While I do taste like a teaspoon or more so straight to get a sense of their flavor, it’s not something I make a habit of – rather preferring, once again, some crusty bread to dip it with.
When I lived in Hungary, one of the staple old-school bar snacks was a thick slice of Hungarian bread slathered in pork lard, a little bit of onion and salt. I loved that stuff. I even had a jar of rendered pork lard with brown crackly bits in my fridge for both use as a spread and cooking.
Completely by itself? Not really, but that applies to a lot of food stuffs. I will however eat bread with nothing on it but the rendered salty and peppery pork fat from the Christmas pork rib roast, and chunks of fat from roasted meat are delicious.
With a good cut of meat I prefer at most salt and pepper [well I do a killer lamb where i cut slits and fill them with a rosemary leaf and a sliver of garlic, and marinate it in olive oil, lemon juice, black pepper, thyme and a small amount of mint or marjoram for a few hours before spit roasting it]
I have one in the sous vide right now, we are going to grill it up for supper tonight. Having Greek Potatoes, cabbage steaks and grilling pineapple slices with brown sugar and cinnamon for dessert.
mrAru is only home alternate weekends so we like to have a more elaborate meal than I would normally make for myself alone =)
The cracklings in Louisiana were dusted with a cajun seasoning [if I got there right after they dropped the basked into the frywell and I could get them hot out of the oil I could talk them into giving me a bag of them plain, so I could have them with salt and pepper =) One can only eat a few of them at time =)
Ditto - I actually seem to be food sensitive to it, anything using canola tends to give me diarrhea so I tend to use cheap olive as a neutral oil. Good olive oil is a great dip for bread =)
I may be wrong, but I look at fat as sort of like a catalyst in food, kind of how salt works. Not enough, and it’s not going to taste very good. But also not something that is particularly appetizing on its own either.
If it was, we’d have people taking shots of olive oil, or corn oil, or just spreading crisco or bacon grease straight onto bread and eating it. But we don’t, because those things are not particularly flavorful on their own. They do however help carry flavors, and add texture, mouthfeel, etc… like nothing else does.
Some people do just dig the hunks of fat on steaks and the like, but that’s not me.
Oh, um … I absolutely do the latter. With a bit of extra salt. As does my father.
Sure, but is it the fat itself? I wonder, because if it was, something like Crisco or other shortening would be delicious in its own right, being nothing but very purified fat.
But things like butter and bacon grease are essentially flavored fat, which is why they taste good.
Well, you brought up bacon in the same context as Crisco, so I’m just saying that, yeah, I do that. Crisco, not so much. Lard, yes. Preferably with onion, but just salt will do. But that has porky flavor. Chicken schmaltz, ditto. That said, it’s not like we really eat “neutral” proteins and “neutral” carbs on their own with no other flavors in them.
I’m just wondering because while I like stuff like chicken thighs, fatty brisket, etc… I draw my line at things like lardo, or eating lard/bacon grease/chicken schmaltz on bread, or just eating the lumps of fat on the edges of a steak.
I’m somewhere in the middle, I suspect- I don’t dislike fat, but it’s not the star of the show either.
When I was a child a preschool teacher forced me to eat a glob of fat that was in a can of soup. I barfed. So thanks to that bitch, fat other than bacon or fried chicken skin or the marbling in meat makes me gag. I trim even the most innocuous fat from something like a steak.
Olive oil - GOOD olive oil - is very tasty. Cheap olive oil is nasty. Neutral oils like canola and peanut are for frying, not drinking.
I find that heat makes canola oddly fishy. I only discovered a few years ago that I’m not the only one:
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskCulinary/comments/ajsxo2/canola_oil_smells_fishy_when_hits_heated/
When I order a piece of Chinese roast pork or char siu, I always ask for the fattest piece and always get a knowing smile!
When I eat a steak or pork chop, I save a piece of fat for my last bite. Yes, it’s sometimes a bit off putting when it’s stone cold, but it quickly turns to heaven as it melts in my mouth.
I once bought a primal of sirloin that had a thick layer of fat on top. I trimmed most of it off and rendered it slowly to make the most wonderfully delicious cooking oil.
Chicken fat is a mostly a different story. I always cook chicken with the skin on, but often tear it away, if not deep fried and remove the globules of fat that sometimes under the skin.
Agreed. I usually buy peanut or safflower oil and just grit my teeth at the expense, or just corn oil if I’m feeling cheap.
Luckily, where I’m at, I can find Ukrainian sunflower oil for about $5-$6 a liter (used to be around $4 a year ago). I haven’t had occasion yet to try safflower.
Was it Stillman? I remember that one from a loooooong time ago. You also had to drink a lot of water, so people would say you’d need to carry a bucket around with you.
Your mention of cracklings reminds me of those little squares of pork fat you get at Chinese BBQ restaurants. Little squares of maybe an 1.5" with a super crisp skin top and unctuous fatty piggy goodness under it.
When my sister was on a diet once, she’d broil the chicken thighs with the skin on, but peel the skin off before eating. I’d take the skin and get it crispier and eat just that.
This stuff is really good (sorry, no English-language entry available)…
…and appears to be similar to this:
Delicious for breakfast (on toast), but too much for me to eat more than a few times a year.
I forgot to mention butter in my post above. I could eat it on just about anything, but now I don’t even buy it for health reasons.
For almost a year, I’ve been starting my day with two big slices of toast drizzled with olive oil and a little salt.
Canola oil doesn’t taste fishy to me. Maybe it’s one of those varying taste bud things?
Probably. I think it has a vaguely unpleasant smell when it gets hot, so I tend to use in in small amounts (i.e., not for deep frying). I keep a pair of ketchup/mustard squeeze bottles on the counter: one has veg oil and the other has olive oil. Very handy for when you need small amounts.