Sunday 10 March 2013

Rendering Leaf Lard

Leaf lard is good for you!  If from a properly raised animal (not from conventionally raised, medicated, confined pigs), it's an excellent source of nutrition and HEALTHY fat.

Along with some beef, we took delivery of 1/2 of a pastured organically raised hog last week.  Not wanting to let that lard go to waste, we chopped it all up and slowly simmered it down over 2 days.  I like using my stainless steel pressure cooker pots for this task because they are heavy and the double bottomed feature prevents scorching.



What resulted was 23 pints PLUS three 1.75 kg tubs of lard!  Just below, is the warm rendered lard (which whitened as it solidified).



Here's what the lard looked like after it cooled...  nice and white!


We do make quite a lot of pies when we have fruit in season and we also make a lot of quiches to use up the bounty of eggs and garden greens in early summer.   I'll be using the leaf lard strictly for pastry as it's highly prized for making the most delicate, flaky pastry you've ever eaten.  My husband is rubbing his hands together in glee awaiting the first pie (which will be his favourite:  Lemon Supreme).

Have you ever rendered lard?  I encourage you to give it a go if you can get your hands on some pig fat from a properly raised pastured animal (another reason to support local farmers).  It's not hard to do and it's much healthier than buying lard from the grocery store.  Give it a try!










15 comments:

  1. I must say, "I'm totally impressed!" Looks like you will have enough lard for pie crust all year...lucky hubbie and family.

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    1. Don't be impressed - it was really easy to do. I've only rendered once before and it was a small quantity - only 3 or 4 pints. This was pretty large scale as we bought 50lbs of pig fat!

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  2. I have really been wanting to try this, but haven't had any luck finding pastured (or even organic, for that matter) pork around here. How long does the rendered lard keep? Do you just leave the jars at room temperature or do you refrigerate them? Sorry for my silly questions :)
    -Jaime

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    1. Hi Jaime :) According to my reading, the lard should keep well for a year in the fridge. We do have a basement fridge and now that it's nearly empty of stored fall garden carrots, we have enough room to keep lard in there until we have more room in the freezer. How's that for musical stockpiles? Because we just filled our freezer with meat, there is no more room for anything else just now but as we eat the meat, I plan to add jars of lard to the freezer to extend the storage life of it.

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  3. I've used beef tallow to make bird suet, but I've never made use of leaf lard. I was interested in making soap with rendered fat sometime and I have a gallon ziplock of beef fat in the freezer. I'm gonna need to render it soon so I can defrost the freezer! It might just end up making bird suet. Other than suet and soap, I'm not sure how to use it.

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    1. Hi Rachael, yes tallow is great for soap making :) Good idea to make bird suet - I bet they love it :)

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  4. Wow, impressive. I have enough lard on me not to put any in my cooking but it certainly looks yummy. I wish i could go to your place for dinner. I'll just pop over shall i - all the way from the bottom of OZ.

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  5. I haven't done lard yet, but I have rendered tallow from a steer we had butchered. Unfortunately I forgot to tell the butcher early enough to get the kidney fat, but I did get plenty of other fat. I've been using it for soap making so far. That lard looks beautiful, and the pies sound delicious!

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    1. Liz - I've not made soap with any tallow - must try that! Have you used any of the soap yet? Would love to know how it turns out.

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  6. I see you put the lard in canning jars... did you process it or should it be frozen? Thanks for the inspiration!

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    1. Hi Patti. No, it isn't processed. It will keep in the fridge for many months (I have a small amount left in the fridge from last year which is not spoiled in any way). I plan to freeze some of it as space opens up in my freezer. :)

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  7. Can I use leaf lard in soap making?

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    1. Hope the leaf lard question was not a silly one to you. I ask about the leaf lard for soap because it seems most all people use leaf lard for pastry only. Didn't want to use leaf lard in my first attempt at soap making and then it was wrong for whatever reason Please reply

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    2. Hello :) Sorry for the delay in replying... Leaf lard is the very best quality of lard from a pig and for that reason, it is commonly used for pastry. Because it is so prized for that purpose, I would not use it for soap unless you were not going to use it for consumption. The back fat would be better for soap in my opinion, but please know that I am NOT an expert! Hope this helps :)

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