[shroomgirl]

I've ordered 35# of leaf lard that's coming in the end of the month.....ok so now that it's showing up I've been looking and asking for a way to make it shelf stable.....I've got canning jars, pressure cooker, access to a cryovac....
my frenchie friend says he grew up with rendered lard ontop of his fridge that they ate with salt on toast....he thought possibly wax ontop, unsure.

I've also am picking up lardo (fatback for a chef who is going to preserve the fatback himself) Steve went to the SLOW Foods school for several months in Italy....He's going to show me how to bone out a piggy and take the hams off and stuff the rest with that meat. Roll and roast.....like a galantine.
I ran it by another friend who started talking about turducken, I mentioned this big ole fryer I'd just seen and we talked about frying a whole pig!!! can you imagine? Bet it'd be really good.

[AprilB]

A whole pig...that sounds great!

Hey, did you happen to see the stats on how many people set their house on fire trying to deep fry turkeys at Thanksgiving now?

It was almost as bad as putting real candles on your tree at X-mas...

My uncle used to eat lard and onion sandwiches during the depression. I'd mention it to people and they'd turn green, but I don't know...it sounds pretty interesting to me...except for the way they had to preserve stuff way back then...go figure...they all lived into a ripe old age even eating all the stuff deemed unhealthy now.

April

[shroomgirl]

My search for shelf stable lard has lead me on a trek that included calling Jeff Steingarten (not returned that call yet), various RD's, Past Pig Queen of nebraska who grew up on a hog farm, a 90+ woman who's momma made lard pies (didn't everyone a century ago?) but couldn't remember how her mom stored it.....
I did discover there is an Institute in DC that specializes in Oils and Fats....how cool is that?
There are some food scientists at Mizzou that should also have a response.
The best so far was from a foodie/farmer friend that lives in New Hampshire and works for the Sustainable Ag program for the University/State. She said that her husband's family would buy 3# cans of it from the butcher and leave it in the basement. Julie said she kept the majority in the freezer and then used wide mouth jars for the stuff she had in the cupboard. She said pour the rendered fat into canning jars right up to the rim and seal them like jam....that makes alot of sense but still looking for scientific validation so it stays fresh. Hard to find info on something that has become all but extinct.

Is there any way you could cut it up in 5lb blocks and freeze it??? Or maybe roll it in some kosher salt on the outside ?
I use lard for all kinds of southern fried anything in cast iron skillets.....chicken,hush puppies,catfish and of course pie dough and biscuits. I know that leaf is the best (kidney fat?) and would love to get my hands on some. Where is your source? The stuff I use now is put out by armour,is shelf stable and available in my local supermarket. I would like to do better because the use of trans fats seems to be the way they make it stable at room temp now and I am trying to avoid all trans fat if possible.

I am extremely jealous and would love to have a friend like steve to teach me how to do the pig that way ! Would it become completely boneless ?? I wonder how that would come out wrapped in a burlap sack and roasted underground ???

I have a container in my freezer as we speak with large amounts of small diced up lard that I "IQF'd for use in the pie doughs and biscuit doughs also and it works out great(good for the flakiness of it)! I sometimes use 20% butter in the doughs for a little extra flavor !
I've done all sorts of deepfrying of birds .....turkeys ,cornish hens,chickens ,ducks, and geese too .....all wonderful! I'm smart enough to do it outside though.....:-)Usually about 3-3.5 min / lb

I rinse and dry thoroughly and have the bird at room temp right before frying and use peanut oil for best results. Also it works best if you split the bird right in half and cook the legs first and when the grease recovers then cook the breasts.... You'll be eatin in 45 minutes(with a 12-14 lb bird) I usually make a dressing on the side with a recipe for stuffing bread I got out of the King Arthur flour Baker's Companion that i make the day before that is wonderful!

I leave the grease out over night untill it cools off completely.... A lot of people forget to not fill the pot up to the rim with fat . The bird itself displaces a lot of the grease so you have to leave room for it ! Otherwise you end up with a mess all over the floor . Whoops ....how did we get all the way over here from leaf lard ? My fault ......sorry....Let me know where you got the leaf lard please ??? TIA

[shroomgirl]

I use leaf lard/butter for pies and sometimes biscuits.....frying is with other lard.
35# is a lotta space to take up in the freezer.....right now the 3gl of blackberries, 7 gl of peaches, 5gl tub of black raspberry sorbet are clogging up space.....time to make pies!!!!

One of the piggy farmers has berkshires that have more fat so he's butchering 10 hogs and I had dibs on the leaf lard.