How to Render Your Own Lard

I see you shrinking back in horror. Lard?! Gross! I feel my arteries clogging up just reading the word! How disgusting! Why would you do a post about this, you lard brain! Yuck!

Do you have it all out of your system now? I know—during the last half of the last century, in this country, because of the connection between animal fat and heart disease, lard became a dirty word. But I'm here to tell you, if you haven't already heard, that you need to update your thinking. Turns out that lard is good for you. It actually contains a healthy percentage of monounsaturated fat and has less saturated fat in it than butter. Thus, the switch from lard to other kinds of fat—hydrogenated oils such as Crisco shortening and margarine, for instance—was not a good move on our part. Knowing, as we do now, that hydrogenation of oil produces the so-called trans fat that is really, really bad for the arteries (well, as of this writing, anyway). Ironic, isn't it? We were all told to eat margarine instead of butter or lard because it was so much healthier, and now we find out . . . and so health information goes.

OK. Now that you know lard is not going to kill you, aren't you curious about what you've been missing in the flavor and texture of, say, fried chicken, refried beans, pie crusts, and so on? I was, so I started nosing around to see how I could get my hands on some pig fat. But, I hear you protesting, they sell lard in the grocery store, Lisa; you can just go buy some. Sadly, the problem with that is that mass-produced lard is hydrogenated to make it more shelf stable. And the hydrogenation makes this naturally good fat into a bad one. So I had to make my own.

I'm ashamed to admit that my first foray into lard making was a failure. I got 10 pounds of back fat—which is, as the name suggests, fat from the back of a pig—from Stan of Triple S Farm in the winter of 2008, and I was so overwhelmed by it that I ended up throwing it out. What a dork.

But I kept thinking about lard, and recently, a coworker friend I'd mentioned my quest to offered to get me some more back fat, from another local farmer's pig. I received my two neatly wrapped, 5-pound packages of fat, and this time, having read everything I could find on the subject, the prospect of rendering the fat into lard didn't seem quite so daunting. All you are doing is melting fat until it becomes liquid. What's so scary about that?

The first thing you do, as the Homesick Texan advises in her great how-to post, is open a window (there is a porky smell associated with rendering lard; it wasn't horrible, but it was definitely a presence). Luckily, I have a window right next to the stove. Then, after you thaw the fat (if it's been frozen), you cut it into small pieces. Gotta tell you, that's the biggest hassle about the whole operation. And it's not that bad, just kind of a pain to get all that fat cut up. Obviously, if you do only, say, a pound of fat at at time, this won't be as much of an issue. But I had to go, you know, whole hog and do 5 pounds (I rendered the fat in two batches of 2.5 pounds each.)

Once you have small pieces (1-inch cubes), you throw them into a big, heavy pot (I used my largest Le Creuset French oven), add a bit of water to keep the fat from burning before it melts (I used a cup for 2.5 pounds of fat), and turn the heat under the pot to medium-low.

 You give the fat a stir every 10 minutes or so, and it starts to melt.

You'll hear the fat sizzling quietly as it melts. After about 30 minutes, much of it is melted. You keep stirring it gently, being careful to protect yourself from popping fat, and then the sizzling sounds turn into low rumbles, which may seem a bit ominous but not to worry, this is normal.

After 45 minutes to an hour, my pork fat was pretty much all melted. There will be pieces of what are called cracklings floating on the top—these are the bits of meat that was clinging to the fat. They won't melt; they become the crispy things that we know as pork rinds. I'd heard much, on other food blogs and Web sites, about how delicious these cracklings are, but I tasted some and couldn't quite see the attraction. I used a large skimmer tool to remove the cracklings from the pot.

Once the fat is all melted and you've removed the cracklings, you take the pot off the heat and let the liquid lard cool down. When it's cool enough that you aren't afraid of burning yourself, you pour it through a cheesecloth-lined strainer into the containers of your choice (I used wide-mouth Mason jars, and my yield was one quart plus one pint from the 5 pounds of fat).

Then you put the jars into the fridge. Some time later, you open the fridge and gaze proudly upon your now solidified, freshly rendered lard.

Then you clean up the grease you spilled all over the place (never said I was neat, and I must use a smaller strainer next time—one that's not many times larger than the mouth of the jars I'm pouring the lard into).

The only thing I've cooked with my lard so far is an omelet, and it was, as noted on Chez Pim, super fluffy and crisp (Pim says that lard is her fat of choice for omelets, stir-fries, and deep-fried foods). I think the next thing I'll make with it will be refried beans, using the Homesick Texan's recipe. After that, it's going to be fried chicken (again from the Homesick Texan, because that just looks like the best fried chicken ever). I don't often make pies (OK, like never), but I might have to now; I've read that 50 percent lard and 50 percent butter produces the best pie crust you've ever tasted. Stan of Triple S told me that "once you make pie crust with lard, you'll never go back." And I hear that using lard in the masa when making tamales is a must.