I was able to get some leaf fat (pork) and some beef fat from a local farmer. I picked up my eight pounds of pork fat and spent today rendering it down into lard. rendering lard in the slow cooker. We like rendering lard in a crockpot on our screened back porch to keep the porky cooking odors out of the house. The Mexican answer to American pulled pork, at their best they should be moist, juicy, and ultra-porky with the rich, tender texture of a French confit, and riddled with plenty of well-browned crisp edges. Rendered animal fat is a useful ingredient to keep in your kitchen. The undisputed king of the taco cart. I have been promising for a long time to do a post about rendering lard, so I thought it was finally time to follow up on that promise (that, and the frozen pork fat in the freezer was going to get frost bitten if left it for too much longer! Home cooks will render pork fat into lard, butter into clarified butter, and chicken fat into schmaltz. Much of the pork you buy from the grocery shelf came from an indoor hog farm. Place the fat in a saucepan with a lid and monitor the fat, stirring occasionally so the cracklings don’t burn. 1. The amount of fat in a pork belly can vary widely. Join me this Thursday for sharing your favorite nourishing breakfast ideas, tips and recipes! Which is a problem because they weren’t able to take in sunlight. A minute or two is all it takes to go from perfectly rendered lard or tallow to burnt cracklins that will make your final product taste off. You then filter the solids from the liquid fat. Cut the pork fat into 1-inch cubes. Even though I didn’t use leaf lard (they were asking $5.00/lb) my lard doesn’t have a strong pork smell. I use a cup of water for a pound or two of cut up fat, medium low heat, and by the time the water is fully evaporated, there's enough liquid fat to keep it going. What you will need to for rendering … There are two ways to render—with dry heat or wet heat. Cut the fat up and toss it in the skillet. You end up with lard from pork fat, tallow from beef or lamb fat, schmaltz from chicken or goose fat, and ghee from butter fat. The happy by-product of rendering pork fat is the cracklings, those small bits of crunchy, tasty roasted fat… Let the rest of the fat continue to render on the stove. As fat renders, crispy cracklings will form, rising to the surface of the bubbling fat. (By the way, rendered animal fat is nothing to be afraid of! These are best eaten sprinkled with salt. Stove top, oven, crock pot have all been recommended. "Schmaltz" is chicken fat commonly used in Jewish cooking. Clear fat will start to render out of the fatty tissues. Explore › guides › food › › When you render any fat, be it lard or tallow, you need to make sure you allocate enough time for the job. It's actually a source of healthy fats when used in moderation. Dry heat means you are cooking just the fat on its own, whereas wet heat includes a bit of water. I rendered over 20 pounds of pastured tallow fat into 13 quarts of tallow in an hour by using my Instant Pot! Here's the fastest way to render animal fat, like tallow and lard, in the Instant Pot! I just moved to upstate NY from Chicago (husband works at SUNY) and I am a homesick Chicagoian, and loves me the great Maexican food over there! Therefore, they more than likely won’t have vitamin D in their fat if they themselves were most likely deficient in it. I am rendering pork fat back in my two large stock pots right now. I put off trying to make lard myself for quite awhile because somehow rendering fats seemed like it was going to be something very difficult or scary to do. I assume the back fat can go right in with the leaf lard, but if they should be dealt with separately, someone please say so. For this batch I strained liquid fat out four times over 90 minutes. Strain off the remainder of the liquid. How to Render Lard. Why? Despite all their different names – the process is the same no matter what fat you use. The smaller you cut your pieces the more quickly the process will go. I had planned on using all of it for suet for our 9 laying hens, but now I'm going to take a couple quarts off of the top for in home use! Leave the lard on the stove to render for about 3 hours, or until it's completely melted. For stove top – Set the burner on low. I ground it up with my kitchenmaid meat grinder attachment and then cooked it in my crockpot. If rendering fat like tallow (beef) or lard (pork) is on your to-learn list for a healthy frying oil, I've got the scoop today… I’ll tell you how I finally made some beautiful beef tallow the other day (yeah, I said it, it’s beautiful, especially after my last attempt which was quite the fiasco), but I’d love to find out if there’s an easier way… This is as opposed to "back fat" which makes a lard suitable for savory cooking. Rendered chicken fat is called schmaltz and is common in traditional Jewish cooking. It is not a hard task, but it is a time-intensive task (most of the time being passive time). Chop up your beef fat into small pieces, taking off any left-over meaty pieces the butcher may have missed. There is just something really special about putting in all the time and effort to render your own lard and tallow. I am so glad I found this post. Leave on stove until completely melted, 4 to 5 hours. I rendered regular pork fat this year for the first time. Method. Well worth the effort! Pork fat (4-5lbs) Slow-Cooker or Dutch Oven 1. It finished in about 3 hours….white and beautiful. That way you can get on with doing other stuff. Keep stirring as the fat starts to cook, making sure that none sticks to the bottom of the pot and that all the pieces are getting warmed. For oven – Set the oven at 250oF. Yes, it does smell funny when doing it, but the rewards are amazing! Starting To Cook. A piece with 30 percent fat will take longer to render than a leaner, 20 percent piece. Methods for Rendering . Allowing the raw fat to melt ever so slowly in a pot on your stove or in your slow cooker will yield lard that is smooth, creamy white in color, and nearly odorless. Leaf lard makes the very best lard - which makes the very best cookies, pie crusts and pastries! The fat that comes from beef or mutton is usually referred to as "tallow", while the fat that comes from pork is called "lard", although tallow can sometimes refer to a mixture of different animal fats and all animal cooking fats can also just be called "suet". It’s time to bring back the age-old tradition of rendering fat in our kitchens! Because rendering lard can take a few hours, it’s easier to do it in the slow cooker. If you’ve happened upon a source of pork fat or leaf lard and you want to take on the project of rendering it yourself, keep in mind that while rendering lard requires no expert skill, it does take time. It has a high smoke point when prepared this way and is excellent for frying, it’s free of transfats and contains no industrial additives. Much preferred to the GMO laden shortening and vegetable/canola oil found on store shelves. Tallow, rendered from beef fat, and lard, rendered from pork fat, are often used for cooking in gut healing diets like the GAPS diet. Place the pork fat into a large roasting pan and bake uncovered. Add ¼ cup of water to the pot to help prevent any burning of the fat at the bottom of the pot while it’s cooking. EXPLORE COLLECTIONS CREATE + back to brit + co. Sign In Sign Up. 2. Place ground fat in a heavy-bottomed pot set over very low heat. You don't need extra oil or fat to sear a pork chop—there's plenty of good fat already living on that there chop. Place the fat in an oven proof pan with a lid and stir occasionally. The pigs weren’t exposed to the outdoors. The amount of finished rendered fat you’ll make will depend on how much animal fat you start with, the length of rendering time and the type of fat you choose. I'll probably going with Alton Brown's recommendation of a 300F oven for 3-4 hours, mashing the fat bits every 30 minutes. We buy meat in bulk and I usually get a kilo each of chicken breasts and thighs – skin on. Reply. Read details here.. Here’s a little of how the progression should look: Once you start getting close to having all the fat rendered, you will notice that the bubbling will drop off significantly. Rendering fat is an old-fashioned method for preparing solid animal fat to use later by separating the fat from any other tissue in the fat. On the stove top; There are also two different methods that you can use as well: Dry Render: No ... 1-2 lbs pork fat (leaf fat is preferred, runner up is back fat), or Beef Suet ½-1 cup water heavy stock pot or cast iron skillet canning funnel (optional, but handy) fine mesh sieve lined with cheesecloth or a coffee filter wide-mouth glass jars for storage. It is organ fat which will be rendered into lard. What you need: A pound or so of pig fat e(ach pound of fat will yield about a pint of lard) Some containers—Mason jars work nicely. Render Some Fat. Alternatively, you can buy pork skin from the supermarket or you can ask your butcher for some pork fat. You may be wondering why I would want to render lard to use in cooking and baking. You really have to keep an eye on any animal fats you render on the stove top. Use a slotted spoon to remove cracklings to a paper towel-lined plate. In order to speed things up you can take a potato masher and squash the fat as it melts. In 30 minutes you will begin to see the fat melting, like a giant, greasy iceberg. Add 1 cup water. 3. Leaf lard is one of them. This nourishing traditional food won't make you fat or clog your arteries... those are 1980s health myths!) But, as there are different types of fat on the pig, there are different types of lard with different characteristics, and some are more appropriate for certain uses than others. Lard, for example, is a rendered fat. Chop pork fat up into little pieces. The water will evaporate by the time the fat renders completely. Mine turned out beautiful, clean, and white (to my surprise). When I'm making lard, though, I do it on the stove, and there you need the water to keep the fat from burning/browning until the fat starts rendering out. Our version is easier than the traditional bucket-of-lard method, and produces results that are juicier and more flavorful. Be sure to turn the fan above your stove on high while rendering lard. Add 2-5 pounds of ground fat and set on high for the first hour. Make sure to ventilate your kitchen by opening a window or turning on the exhaust fan or both. Eventually the solids will reach a point where they’re not producing any more liquid: That means they’re done! Carnitas. This guide will show the simple steps to “wet render” animal fat on your stove top using common kitchen supplies. On my stove, I use #2 on the dial. 2. Lard is rendered pork fat, and the term is typically used to refer to rendered pork fat that is suitable for cooking. ). When the pork rinds look yummy, you're ready. I find that beef fat renders faster but yields less tallow, whereas pork fat is slower but yields a larger amount of lard. The process to render your own chicken fat takes about an hour and is a similar process for any kinds of animal fats. When we are rendering at our stove, this is on a much smaller scale. Despite popular myth, lard is not bad for you. 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