Cooking with Lard

[Jittlebags]

No, not a new cookery series with Mr Radcliffe's best mate.

I bought 8 blocks of lard yesterday at 39p a pop. The chip pan is primed, I'm getting some maris pipers on the way home, and I'm going to cook chips in lard. Will my arteries fur up like a kettle in a hard water area? Will the chips taste any good? Will they be crunchy? Will my house stink of lard ?

Anyone done any lard based cooking, in particular frying ? Any handy lard tips and tricks ?

[Sebastian Cobb]

I've been known to use it for fry ups and also for refried beans.

I wouldn't do it in a chip pan, because I'm not sure you can in the electric ones and I think the stove-top ones are just pointlessly dangerous.

[im barry bethel]

Nan, is that you?

[pancreas]

V good for duck confit.

V good for roast potatoes.

I also like Lardy Cake.

I think this is all I know about lard, I'm afraid.

[MidnightShambler]

When we were in Oslo a few years ago, rather than dip into my pension to buy a cooked breakfast I decided to buy the ingredients myself and ended up paying three quid for what I thought was butter but was in fact lard.

I'm glad I could finally get that off my chest.

[NoSleep]

No, not a new cookery series with Mr Radcliffe's best mate.

I bought 8 blocks of lard yesterday at 39p a pop. The chip pan is primed, I'm getting some maris pipers on the way home, and I'm going to cook chips in lard. Will my arteries fur up like a kettle in a hard water area? Will the chips taste any good? Will they be crunchy? Will my house stink of lard ?

Anyone done any lard based cooking, in particular frying ? Any handy lard tips and tricks ?

If you get the temperature of the oil/molten fat spot on, then there is no absorption of fat when you deep fry. I've got a deep fryer that sorts out the temperature for me and I can vouch that the same amount of oil goes back into the fridge that I put in to start with. You will notice that deep fried food looks similar to grilled food, as something similar happens to the food in both processes. Greasy chips = you're doing it wrong.

[Jittlebags]

Yes, looks like lard's smoke point 182°C is only marginally greater than the 180°C cooking temperature, so looks like an electric fryer is going to be the way to go. Although the Argos ones don't appear to support solid fats.

Looks like I may have been better off going down the beef dripping route - 210°C smoke point.

[NoSleep]

Or get some high temperature cooking oil (light & mild olive oil will do the trick).

So you're now going to fork out for a deep frier after showing off to everyone how cheap your lard was?

[Jittlebags]

Yes, it's looking much that way! Still, I'm sure a temperature controlled DFF will open up new cooking vistas.

[Twed]

The standard lard from the supermarket is really bad, hydrogenated stuff. Real lard is wonderful. It's a shame we've been conditioned against the drippings that come from meat, the stuff left in the pan after you fry bacon etc., made to think that they go directly into your veins and make you die - because people end up using evil vegetable oils and bad, pristine blocks of Asda lard instead.

Or get some high temperature cooking oil (light & mild olive oil will do the trick).

Coconut oil is great. Very high smoke point, natural. A little pricey, is all.

Although I don't think NoSleep's diet aligns much with mine, I am echoing his deep frying claims. Use the right temperature and you get very little oil in the food.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Push it through a picture of the pop singer Mickey Rourke, while saying "Luh ar ruh duh."

[ArtParrott]

Use water, flour and lard and you can make your own tortillas, in theory.

[Emma Raducanu]

Use lard in place of massage oil.

[Twed]

https://myselfreliance.com/lard-based-hand-body-salve/

I urge you to read just that URL and then scroll down to the second image and read the labels on the jars. If that doesn't tickle you you're dead inside.

[Shit Good Nose]

Big fan of lard - rillettes and smalec and the German one with the bits of crispy crackling, pastry made with it etc.  Nom.

But for chips and roasties I must admit I prefer beef dripping.  Not quite as crispy results as you get with lard, but a bit more flavour.  Nom.

[Twed]

I really love chicken fat/schmaltz. With a little salt the flavour is incredible.

[Jittlebags]

I'm off to Waitrose to case out some dripping for future investigation. Think I'll do careful manual temperature controlled DFF with the lard tonight.

[Sebastian Cobb]

God I'd kill for some dripping on toast right now.

[NoSleep]

Last time I ate that, many years ago, my face exploded with painful zits the next day. Never again.

[canadagoose]

[Lisa Jesusandmarychain]

[ tag ] Jello Biafra trudges out of thread, disconsolately clutching Chef's hat [ tag ]

[rectorofstiffkey]

We went to a restaurant in Prague which was called 'U Sadlu' (the lard) and it was indeed very lardy.  As a pre-starter, they brought small pots of lard with pork scratchings for dipping.

That was about 15 years ago, and my arteries are still recovering.  Lovely though.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Fucking hell

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

We went to a restaurant in Prague which was called 'U Sadlu' (the lard) and it was indeed very lardy.  As a pre-starter, they brought small pots of lard with pork scratchings for dipping.

That was about 15 years ago, and my arteries are still recovering.  Lovely though.

Amazing that the images on Google for the place still look like the food was cooked in 1974.

49kc for a Budvar in there though, definitely not 1974, fuck's sake thanks to Brexit that's nearly £2.

[rectorofstiffkey]

Amazing that the images on Google for the place still look like the food was cooked in 1974.

49kc for a Budvar in there though, definitely not 1974, fuck's sake thanks to Brexit that's nearly £2.

It was much cheaper than that when we went!  The food in Prague in general seemed like a bit of a throwback, and I've never eaten so much pickled stuff.

The culinary low point in Prague was a steak with redcurrant and cream; I envisaged a sauce containing both.  What arrived at the table was a steak topped with a spoonful of redcurrant jelly surrounded by a circle of Anchor squirty cream.  It tasted every bit as nice as it sounds.

[TrenterPercenter]

Laaaaaaard hava-mercy!

[Jittlebags]

Chips cooked. Kitchen not burned down. There's a bit of a smell, but not an unpleasant one. Chips were tasty, but not crunchy. When I follow the timings and temperatures with Maris Piper's they always seem to brown too early, and that's despite soaking in water to get rid of surface starch. Might be me, but Maris Piper's have always done that to me. Chips made with fresh allotment spuds have always been fine. Anyway, doing roasties in lard tomorrow.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Lard-cooked food and good stomachs are never friends for long.  Don't be a victim of the "lard habit.'

[Twed]

Don't be a victim of the "lard habit.'

You must be hanging around with some really freaky nuns.

[Dex Sawash]

[tag] would you like to sear my penos


Been crafting that for 18 hours