Making lard JUICE (and pork rinds)

(Running from stupidity) #1

Spoiler alert - it’s like making lard with literally anyone else who has a semblance of a clue.

Start with your pig fat. I had two kilos and made two batches in case I screwed it up. Could easily have done one batch. No idea what type it was, I just bought “pig fat” from the the pork butcher.

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A little while later, it looked like this after some stellar knife work saw it cut up into 1cm cubes (very roughly). The smaller the pieces the better.

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I then added a little water to the dutch oven and then dumped the chopped up fat in with it.

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(A few hours pass as the fat renders down on a very low heat - wiggle around Young-Ones style to indicate the passing of time.)

I then scooped it out into jars via the agency of a fine metal sieve and a nut-milk-strainer bag in order to catch all the bits and just get the beautiful lard juice.

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Actually, that doesn’t look all that great in terms of lard.

(a few more hours pass, in which the second batch was processed, and you should again do the wiggle to pay homage to the comic genius - well, OK, not really genius, more just brilliance - of Rik Mayall, Ade Edmondson and Nigel Planer.)

Ta-da!

The newly-rendered second batch example alongside the cooled and solidified finished product.

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You also get a heap of cracklings that you can fry up for use as croutons, etc… (Again, that’s just the first batch. Bowl is now filled after the second batch.)

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And finally, your beautiful snow-white lard, ready for use, gifting, etc…

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I paid about $3/kg for the pig fat, and it was great, used about 99.9% of it, very clean. Probably netted about 1.3-1.4kg of lard from just over 2kg of fat, plus the cracklings.

Photos aren’t great, they were shot inside and without a flash,as I was too lazy to set one up, and I wasn’t putting hot oil inside my lightbox. Apologies for that.

#2

:joy::joy::joy::joy:

Well I was going to complain but as you’ve apologised…

(Heather Meyer) #3

And what does one use Lard for?

(Running from stupidity) #4

It can be used for pastry. By others :slight_smile: But it has a high smoke point, so it’s great for frying stuff in, and it’s good in sausages and so on.

(John) #5

The kind you want to use for pastry (if you can find it) is wet-rendered leaf lard, which comes from the visceral fat of the pigs.

What Juice made there is dry-rendered lard, and probably just from general pork fat so there will be a distinct pork flavor to it.

Ideal for sauteing vegetables or adding flavor to greens, though.

(Carl Keller) #6

Those cracklins look tasty. Great idea to use them as croutons!

(Running from stupidity) #7

Aye, exactly. Or frying pork rinds :slight_smile:

(Running from stupidity) #8

Frying another lot up this arvo once the current batch of lard has rendered (only been on an hour or so so far). It’s regular production line for them over here :slight_smile:

(Running from stupidity) #9

OK, question - what’s the best way to really crisp up the cracklins?

Tomorrow I’m oven drying some more skin in order to fry that into pork rinds - should I put the cracklins in with them and then fry them up together? Just do them in a hot oven for a while?

I tried frying them up tonight (lard @ about 200C) and really got nowhere good. They still seem to be a bit soggy and have a weird aftertaste according to my wife (not a good idea to do this while not eating, really, it’s hard to check the product #genius).

Not sure of the best thing to do here.

(bulkbiker) #10

The best results I got so far was cutting up the skin and fat and using the crunchy pork belly bites recipe.
Water to cover then cook to evaporate the water then let them fry… but I think I needed more fat as the skin alone didn’t give out enough… and if you boil them first then they need rinsing to get the “scum” off as that makes the rinds stick together so they don’t fry properly.
Maybe a use for your lard?
Boil to cook then strain rinse and dry then fry in lard?
I’m not allowed to experiment too much more as I made so much mess in the kitchen last time I tried :sweat:

(Running from stupidity) #11

Yeah, that’s the plan.

With the skin I’m going to dry that in the oven for a few hours then into the hot lard to “deep” fry, but the leavings from the lard render have got me a bit confused.

I think I might try baking them, see what happens. Nothing to lose at this point, I’ve got some great lard out of the process already :slight_smile:

(bulkbiker) #12

I think the boiling of the skin really did help with the texture…and the cooked skin was much easier to “puff up” When I’ve tried over baking I found you get really hard patches that don’t puff as well as the bits that do… good luck and we need pics!

(Running from stupidity) #13

I’ll give that a crack tomorrow. I should do it now, I guess, but I’m too tired, and I’m bit over cooking while not eating :slight_smile:

(Running from stupidity) #14

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Method:

Took any remaining fat, meat, etc off the skin.

Boiled the skin for an hour.

Scraped remaining fat off skin with a butter knife.

Dried in oven overnight at 65C.

Deep-fried in lard @ ~190C for a couple of minutes.

Probably would have ended up a better colour if I’d left them in longer.

Worked really well, although I over-salted them a bit.

Easy now I’ve got it down.

(bulkbiker) #15

Now they look great but are they a bit dry?
Scraping off all the fat makes them like that or not?

(Running from stupidity) #16

Cha says they are dry, but they’re mostly for using with dips/cheese, so for that they’re great.

I’ll try some without the final butter knife scrape and see how they go.

I was going to get some more skin today but just couldn’t face it :slight_smile:

However, I’m thinking I might get some tomorrow, but I’m trying to talk myself out of it :slight_smile:

(bulkbiker) #17

I must admit after the mess I made last time (and the telling off I got!) I’m wary of trying again… maybe wait until I get some more belly pork…

(Running from stupidity) #18

I’m OK because I’m the cleaner-upper always, so it’s always my mess to clean irrespective of who made it :slight_smile:

But this way doesn’t make much mess. Frying pork belly is a hundred times worse.

(Marius the butter craving dude) #19

My grandparents make somewhere to 30 kg of lard juice every winter out of a whole home grown pig. We use it primarily for cooking. also the crackers are great but I have had them since I was a child.
I am surprised that this processes with is traditional and wide spreed in my country is lost in other countries. I mean when you grow a animal you eat all of it’s parts, this is how it should be.

(Running from stupidity) #20

New batch of pork rinds made last night.

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Better for sure. Some didn’t work, but most did.

I did a bit of an A/B experiment in this one. Here’s my system used yesterday.

  • slice off fat and meat from skin

  • cut skin into manageable chunks

  • boil it for a couple of hours

  • (make lard from the pork fat I bought, and with the fat cut away from the skin)

A/B test part - half of the skin, I scraped off the excess fat (with a dinner knife, it’s very soft) and half I didn’t bother.

  • Cut them into smaller pieces

  • put the pieces on some cooling racks on a baking sheet in the over for 3+ hours @ 120C

  • pull them out when dry - heat lard made earlier

  • heat it to about 190C-200C

  • Put the dried skin pieces in a few at a time (I probably was a bit cautious here, their thermal mass is nothing compared to that of the hot lard)

  • Remove and drain

A/B Test result - the bits that had the excess fat removed were better enough to be well worth the minimal effort.