I was chopping up some very fatty pork for a stir fry and I was curious if I could make lard. Now, I think tallow is rendered beef fat and lard is rendered pork fat but I could be mistaken.
What is the process of rendering? Is it just the melting of fat and removal of solids? I’ve cooked the fat from the pork and poured off the fat into a container. What remains are crispy bits of something. Are these what they call cracklin’s? What are cracklin’s made of? Bits of fat and connective tissue maybe?
They’re kind of tasty, but must be god awful for you. i’ll bet they would be good over rice, but what does one usually do with them?
Is the fat that I’ve rendered and poured off now lard? Can I mix it with masa harina and make tortillas?
When butchering a hog , they don’t skin it like they would a deer or a beef . They dip the whole hog ( after it is dead) into boiling water pull it out and scrape the hair off . This takes a lot of dipping and scarping. Then after the hair is removed there is a thick layer of fat that is sliced off in strips about a foot long and 2 or 3 inches wide those are cut up into 1x1 inch cubes . then they add about 3 or 4 inches of lard from the last hog to a 20 gallon cast iron kettle with a fire under it . when that lard starts to bubble they will start adding the cubes they will have a wooden paddle and someone has to stir that kettle continuously . That usually falls to the younger boys to do . when all the fat has been rendered they will have that 20 gallon kettle almost brimming over with melted lard they will leave it sat there covered over night to cool then remove it to tin cans with tight lids for storage … The cracklin’s will be packaged in quart size zip lock bags and frozen . to be added to the beans for seasoning . They are totally different from the snack food you buy in the chip section of the store.
Yes you can use some of the lard to make tortillas, just remember to use very warm water ,not hot , when making the mix. The way you tell if you have the right mixture is when the masa forms a ball leaving the bowl clean .
Lard is relatively easy to make, but the type of fat you use does make a difference. The best fat for lard is leaf fat, which is flaky fat found around the kidneys. It’s nice and soft and creamy white.
That said, you can make it with any fat. The best way I’ve found to process lard at home is to cut the fat into chunks and put it in a food processor. Run it for a minute or two to pulverize the fat as much as possible, then start adding a bit of water slowly, while the machine is running. You basically want to make an emulsified slurry.
Once you have that, pour it into an oven-safe dish, and put it in a 220 degree oven for many hours, stirring occasionally to break it up. You’ll end up with a pile of crystal clear lard and some cracklings. Delicious.
Thanks, I seem to recall something about the leaf fat. I think I’ll try to make some tortillas from my rendered pork fat anyway, since I have masa harina lying around.
So are pork rinds pretty much the same thing as cracklins?
Interesting to note: Sodium tallowate, made from rendered animal fat, is one of the primary ingredients in bars of soap. Something to keep in mind next time I am rubbing a bar all over myself in the shower.
Yup. Old fashioned lye soap is just rendered fat and lye produced from potash. If you’ve ever eaten lutefisk you’ll find it tastes soapy from the fish fat combining with the lye that preserves the fish.
Unless you are buying it from Shell, or British Petroleum, in which case it’s more likely to be something like a molybdenum or lithium salt of a mineral grease.
Forgot about that.