[mudbug]

I would love to know the best ways to make homemade lard so we can incorporate this into our cooking at home. Look forward to responses.

[cape chef]

cchiu, First you would need to get a pig carcess.
The best lard comes from around the kidneys (this is called flare)or leaf lard
It is pure white fat.
also Fat back which is in between the flesh and the skin makes a good lard. This is also easy to buy.
You want to make sure no skin or membrane remain (or at least as little as possible) Then soak the fat in cold water and then slowly render it on the stove.

Just courious, what do you plan to make with your home made lard?
cc

[shroomgirl]

I separate my lard into leaf lard (for pies) and other for frying.
put on med/low and cook until it is rendered, strain and pour into a container when cooled.
Tamales would be reg lard....leaf is SPECIAL.
Talk to a pig farmer, I can connect you (Call the Farmer's Union in Jeff City and ask Russ who can set you up with lard.) Make sure the butcher?processer understands what you want because there are very few requests for it these days and they don't mess with it much.
Best Fried chicken is fried in lard!!!!

[Pete]

What do you guys think of purchased lard (already rendered)? Living in a city with such a large mexican population, it is easy to find lard in just about every grocery store and supermarket in Chicago. I use it for making my tamales most of the time, and think it works great.

[mudbug]

Thank you for your response cape chef.

I haven't narrowed it down to any one thing. In my research, I've found that aside from the obvious applications for savory cooking, lard may be the best pastry of any grease for everything from vegetable pastries to light dessert pastries.

I saw a cooking show over the weekend and the chef was sharing a story of his son's friend who was over. The chef was going to make french fries. The boy looked at him in disbelief and said, "You can't do that!" The chef asked "Where do you think french fries come from?" The boy responded, "The freezer!"



It's a sad day when a majority of the children in this society have no clue as to the origin of foods. Everything comes in a box. What would people truly eat if they really knew what they were eating form those boxes? I'm all for saving time but sometimes it just seems ridiculous! Ready to eat pre-cooked bacon!? Just yesterday I saw individually shrinkwrapped plastic potatoes for $0.68 ea. It was promoting - cook your potato in the microwave!

Please!

Are we really that busy, are we that lazy, or are we that clueless? (that was a rhetorical question)

Back to the lard... I'm interested in eating well. Since most, if not all of the commercial lard is hydrogenated saturated fat which is even worse than saturated fat, I wanted to see we couldn't make our own. If I'm going to ingest fat, short of raising my own organically fed pig and butchering it myself, I'd like to [try] to know where what I'm eating is coming from and if that means a little extra work in research and time, that's fine because of the knowledge I've gained.

Besides nutrition, I've become intrigued by the history of how things were done "in the old days" and if nothing else, to at least do it once so I understand the process. If I'm going to use butter and lard at all in my cooking, I might as well make it myself so I know what's in it.

Butter is SO easy to make!



shroomgirl,

Thanks for the source! I've been reading up on leaf lard. I'll check around town first...

[kokopuffs]

Someone pls refresh my memory between lard and suet.

[mudbug]

Pete, part of the reason I'm wanting to make homemade lard is because I want to avoid purchasing commercial lard which is "hydrogenated saturated fat" which is even worse for your body than "saturated fat".

What is hydrogenated fat?

Food factories create hydrogenated fat by cooking liquid vegetable oils at very high temperatures and pressures. Machines pump hydrogen into this brew, along with a metal catalyst, often nickel. The hydrogen gas fills in the missing hydrogen bonds on the oil molecule, turning the liquid oil into a solid or semi-solid form.Animal fats like butter or lard are hard at room temperature because there are few or no missing hydrogen atoms.These fats are called "saturated."Hydrogenated fats are "artificially saturated."

For more on this process, click here .

What is wrong with hydrogenated fat?
Our bodies do not readily recognize these artificially saturated fat molecules. Thus, they are difficult to digest, and stay in the body a long time. This can cause weight gain and digestive troubles.

Hydrogenated fats are high in trans-fatty acids. The trans-fatty acids found in products containing hydrogenated oil are linked to increases in bad cholesterol and decreases in good cholesterol; i.e., more heart attacks. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health and the Wageningen Centre for Food Sciences in the Netherlands took a look at 25 studies on the subject and concluded, in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine, that the more trans fatty acids you eat, the higher your risk of a coronary disease.

When fats break down in the body, one of the products are chemicals called prosteglandins, which regulate certain body processes. Prostaglandins help control inflammation, and are used by the body in many ways, for instance during sex, or after you twist your ankle. Some prostaglandins cause inflammation, others work against it. Hydrogenated fats break down into prosteglandins which cause inflammation, throwing off that delicate balance and leading to chronic inflammatory diseases and pain.

Where are hydrogenated fats found?
Just about everywhere in the modern American supermarket. Unfortunately, they are even more prevalent in children's foods, and children are the last people who should be eating hydrogenated fats.

Two very common products are purely hydrogenated fat:
stick margarine
vegetable shortening

Since many well-intentioned home bakers use shortening, home-made cannot be deemed non-hydrogenated.

Several other products are nearly all hydrogenated fat:
tub margarine
Non-dairy whipped dessert toppings and cake frostings
Non-dairy coffee creamers
Mass-produced confections

Dozens of everyday food products contain appreciable levels of hydrogenated fats. Unfortunately, in these categories of ubiquitous products, nearly every brand, flavor or variety contain some amount of hydrogenated fat.

breads, rolls and buns
cookies
pop-tarts
cakes
crackers
ice cream
candy
breakfast cereal
granola bars
peanut butter
dips or spreads
chips and snack foods
fried fast foods

Search the Trans Fatty Acid database to find the amount of dangerous trans-fats in all types of food products.

What are some hints that a product might contain hydrogenated fats?
Products containing hydrogenated fat tend to be solid, not liquid. The following words are tip-offs:

chewy
creamy
lite
no animal fat
no cholesterol

They wouldn't put hydrogenated fats in kids' foods, right?
Wrong! Kids foods have some of the highest levels of hydrogenated fats. Especially guilty are the breakfast cereals, cookies and crackers that kids love. Breakfast bars, snack bars, peanut butter and other products marketed for kids are loaded with hydro fats. We feel strongly that the epidemic of fat, lazy, attention-deficit children in the United States is at least partly a result of a diet extraordinarily high in hydrogenated fats and refined sugars.

What about fast food? Does it have hydrogenated fats?
Fast food is loaded with hydro fats. Hamburger and hot dog buns all have it. French fries are mostly fried in pure hydrogenated fat now, since beef tallow is politically incorrect. McDonalds, among others, switched to vegetable shortening a few years ago in response to misguided public pressure to get rid of lard. Why was Mickey-D's loathe to switch? Because lard-fried fries taste better! So now, we get bland fries with as much as 40 percent trans fats. Be sure to read Fast Food Nation to get the scoop on the many evils of corporate-controlled fast food.

Donuts are also fried in hydrogenated fats and have some of the highest counts of trans fats of any food.

What about partially hydrogenated fat? Isn't that better?
No. In fact, it may be even worse. Partially hydrogenated fat has the alien, altered structure of the fully saturated version. Because not all the hydrogen bonds were filled with hydrogen, it may even be likely to carry more of the metal catalyst. Furthermore, because there are still hydrogen bonds unfilled, it will go rancid much faster than fully hydrogenated oils. Here is an interesting discussion of the partial hydrogenation debate.

Why do food manufacturers use hydrogenated oil?
Three reasons:
Cost
Market factors
Shelf life

Cost: Hydrogenated oils are cheaper than butter or coconut oil, the two most likely replacements. Lard or tallow are cost competitive, but carry taste or public acceptance problems.

Market factors: Liquid vegetable oils cannot replace hydrogenation for all applications, particularly in baked goods. If hydrogenation were all of the sudden unacceptable, prices for butter and other replacements would rise. Advertisers have brainwashed most of the public that animal and tropical fats are bad, and vegetable oils are good. Do to faulty labeling laws, products which contain no actual cholesterol, but make your levels of low-density cholesterol go up, may still be labeled as "no cholesterol."

Shelf life: Fully hydrogenated products will not go rancid for a very long time. Think: Twinkie. This is a major consideration for large or multinational bakers who ship products across oceans or continents. Ditto for wholesales and retailers who stock and sell these products. This factor also causes hydrogenated oils to be added to products which really do not require them, such as ice cream or peanut butter (ground peanuts and salt is really all you need). However, good packaging can partly make up for the rancidity factor.

Click here to view the complete article.

[Kimmie]

Suet is raw beef (or mutton) fat, especially the fat found around the loins and kidneys.

[mudbug]

kokopuffs,

I believe that originally, lard referred to rendered pork fat and suet refers to beef fat.

Aahhh, here you go:

Lard
RENDERED and CLARIFIED pork fat, the quality of which depends on the area the fat came from and the method of rendering. The very best is leaf lard, which comes from the fat around the animal's kidneys. Unprocessed lard has quite a strong flavor and a soft texture. Lard can be processed in many ways including filtering, bleaching, hydrogenation and emulsification. In general, processed lard is firmer (about the consistency of VEGETABLE SHORTENING), has a milder, more nutlike flavor and a longer shelf life. Lard is richer than many other fats and therefore makes extremely tender, flaky biscuits and pastries. It's a flavorful fat for frying and is widely used throughout South America and many European countries. When substituting lard for butter in baking, reduce the amount by 20 to 25 percent. All lard should be tightly wrapped to prevent absorption of other flavors. It may be stored at room temperature or in the refrigerator, depending on how it has been processed. Always check the label for storage directions

Suet
Found in beef, sheep and other animals, suet is the solid white fat found around the kidneys and loins.

From the Epicurious Dictionary

[kokopuffs]

LDL's are low density lipoproteins. They're bad for you because they deposit cholesterol onto the blood vessel wall. HDL's, high density lipoproteins, remove cholesterol from the walls and blood vessels - in a nutshell.

Desired are high levels of HDL's and low levels of LDL's. In and of themselves LDL's and HDL's aren't really cholesterol at all but rather molecules that transport cholesterol into and out of the blood vessels.

[roon]

cchiu, thank you for that very informative post. It is for those very reasons that I refuse to use either margarine or shortening any longer. Once I read the processing required to make those products- blech.

There is a brand of non-hydrogenated lard. It is Morrell brand, it comes in a blue box, and in buckets I believe as well. Not all stores carry it though, instead they carry the Amor brand, which is partially hydrogenated. Double blech.

I would also be interested in finding a source for fresh lard (since I also can't raise a pig where I currently live!) Guess it's time to make some phone calls!

The best tasting foods I've ever made have had either lard or butter- mmm,mmm.

[Rachel]

The Scots steamed pudding par exellence, 'Clootie Dumpling' is made with suet as are most of the traditional recipes for pastry. i've tried, but olive oil really isn't the same. . .

[Pete]

I just looked at the ingredient list for my block of lard and it did say hydrogenated. I never knew-I just figured that it wouldn't be hydrogenated. As for it's preparation, though I have never done it, I imagine it would be pretty much the same as rendering duck fat. You should be able to get fatback or leaf lard from from your local butcher, if not talk to a chef that you are friendly with and he will definately be able to get it from one of his meat purveyors. Next cut it into chunks, and put it into a pot with enough water to cover half way. The water keeps the fat, crackling, and meat from burning until the fat has rendered out. Allow to simmer until all the water has evaporated and all you are left with is the pure fat. Strain this and that is the pure lard. As a side note, take the leftover skin and meat, heat some of the lard up and fry these until golden and crispy. Cracklin's are great with just a little salt and tabasco sauce, but definately not for the weak of heart!!!

[mudbug]

So that's what "Cracklin's" are! Uuummmm... Sounds delicious. You know, if you're going to injest something that's not good for you, it might as well taste good! Thanks Pete.

[Pete]

One of my favorite ways to use duck cracklin's is to fold them into mashed potatoes along with caramelized onions. I take slowly caramelized onions and infuse them into heavy cream, then use that and as much butter as I possibly can to make the mashed potatoes. Then I fold in the crispy crackin's. They don't really stay crispy but they do add great flavor, plus I really like to try to clog my arteries as fast as I can!!!!! So let's review, shall we? Potatoes whipped with heavy cream (fat) and lots of butter (fat) and fold in cracklin's (pieces of fat fried in fat). What is not to love about a dish like that?!!!!!!!!! LOL!