LARD & GEE

Lard has always been an important cooking and baking staple in cultures where pork is an important dietary item, the fat of pigs often being as valuable a product as their meat. During the 19th century, lard was used in a similar fashion as butter in North America and many European nations. Lard was also held at the same level of popularity as butter in the early 20th century and was widely used as a substitute for butter during World War II.

Toward the late 20th century, lard began to be regarded as less healthy than vegetable oils (such as olive and sunflower oil) because of its high saturated fatty acid and cholesterol content. Despite its reputation, lard has less saturated fat, more unsaturated fat, and less cholesterol than an equal amount of butter by weight. Unlike many margarines and vegetable shortenings, unhydrogenated lard contains no trans fat (the consumption of trans fats increases the risk of coronary heart disease). It has also been regarded as a "poverty food". Many restaurants in the western nations have eliminated the use of lard in their kitchens because of the religious and health-related dietary restrictions of many of their customers. Many industrial bakers substitute beef tallow for lard in order to compensate for the lack of mouthfeel in many baked goods and to free their food products from pork-based dietary restrictions.

In the 1990's and early 2000's, the unique culinary properties of lard became widely recognized by chefs and bakers, leading to a partial rehabilitation of this fat among professionals. This trend has been partially driven by negative publicity about the trans fat content of the partially hydrogenated vegetable oils in vegetable shortening. Lard has become popular in the United Kingdom among aficionados of traditional British cuisine. This led to a "lard crisis" in early 2006 in which British demand for lard was not met due to demand by Poland and Hungary (who had recently joined the European Union) for fatty cuts of pork that had served as an important source of lard. Lard is one of the few edible oils with a relatively high smoke point, attributable to its high saturated fatty acids content. Pure lard is especially useful for cooking since it produces little smoke when heated and has a distinct taste when combined with other foods. Because of the relatively large fat crystals found in lard, it is extremely effective as a shortening in baking. Many chefs and bakers deem lard a superior cooking fat over shortening.

Homemade lard

Pie crusts made with lard tend to be more flaky than those made with butter. Many cooks employ both types of fat in their pastries to combine the shortening properties of lard with the flavor of butter. Butter consists mostly of saturated fat and is a significant source of dietary cholesterol. For these reasons, butter has been generally considered to be a contributor to health problems, especially heart disease. For many years, vegetable margarine was recommended as a substitute, since it is an unsaturated fat and contains little or no cholesterol. In recent decades, though, it has become accepted that the trans fats contained in partially hydrogenated oils used in typical margarines significantly raise undesirable LDL cholesterol levels as well.

A higher proportion of monounsaturated fats in the diet is linked with a reduction in the risk of coronary heart disease. This is significant because olive oil is considerably rich in monounsaturated fats, most notably oleic acid. Lard contains more monounsaturated fats than butter or tallow. Lard is one of the great products that is largely misunderstood today and has developed an undeserving reputation as an unhealthy product. To set the record straight we have listed some USDA data and statistics about lard and other animal fats.

The conclusion is simple: pork fat (lard) is much healthier than butter or tallow (beef or sheep fat). Save on butter, eat more lard and you will live longer.

When the II World War ended in 1945, lard was the main staple in every household for these reasons:

100 g of lard provides 900 kcal of energy.

It tasted great. People ate lard sandwiches with tomatoes, pickles, it tasted even great when topped with sugar.

Could be kept in a cool place for many months.

Lard can be obtained from any part of the pig as long as there is a high concentration of fatty tissue. The highest grade of lard, known as leaf lard, is obtained from the "flare" visceral fat deposit surrounding the kidneys and inside the loin. Leaf lard has little pork flavor, making it ideal for use in baked goods, where it is treasured for its ability to produce flaky, moist pie crusts. The next highest grade of lard is obtained from fatback, the hard subcutaneous fat between the back skin and muscle of the pig. To extend the shelf life of pork fat (or any fat) it must be rendered (melted down), offering the following benefits:

Removal of water.

Separation of impurities.

It kills bacteria that would start the spoiling process.

Two types of lard can be produced:

1. Lard shortening that will be used for general cooking and frying. Such a lard can be made from any pork fat and even 20% of beef fat may be added. The leftover cracklings are normally saved for making liver or blood sausages. The easiest way to make lard is to mince fat with a grinder and that will produce the largest amount of lard.

Instructions:

Cut fat into 1 inch pieces and grind through 1/8 inch (3mm) plate.

Add little water (1/2 cup to 4 quart skillet) to a skillet and place on a stove. Adding water prevents lard from sticking to the bottom of a skillet. Lard being a fat, will not mix with water anyhow and the water will evaporate during cooking.

Add ground fat and stir often in order not to burn the fat.

A by-product of dry-rendering lard is deep-fried meat, skin and membrane tissue known as cracklings. Once when cracklings develop a golden color and the lard becomes clearer, take off the skillet from the stove and let it stand for 20 minutes.

Pour 75% of clear lard into jars. This is very clean lard that will last the longest. Filter the remaining lard (it contains cracklings) through a fine sieve or cheese cloth. Use cracklings for sausages. Use this lard first.

2. Ready to eat lard (smalec in Polish) has been traditionally produced in Europe to be spread on a slice of bread and eaten as a sandwich. Such lard is made from pork fat only, preferably from back fat. Belly fat may be used as well although it may be considered a waste as bacon can be processed in many other ways. The resulting cracklings are saved and become a part of lard. They may be added to boiled sausages (liver and blood). The highest quality lard will be obtained when the pork fat is manually diced into 1/4 inch cubes which will produce a larger number of solid cracklings, known in Polish as skwarki. To add extra flavor, ingredients such as onion, garlic, apple or marjoram are often added.

Instructions:

Cut fat into 1 inch pieces and grind through 1/8 inch (3 mm) plate.

Add little water (1/2 cup to 4 quart skillet) to a skillet and place on a stove.

Add ground fat and stir often in order not to burn the fat.

Once when cracklings develop a golden color and the lard becomes clearer, take off the skillet from the stove and let it stand for 20 minutes.

Pour 75% of clear lard into jars. This is very clean lard that will last longest. Filter the remaining lard (it contains cracklings) through a fine sieve or cheese cloth. Use this lard first.

Add cracklings to each container or a glass jar. They will have a tendency to settle down on the bottom. To distribute them evenly, mix lard adding a new portion of cracklings. As the lard cools down it changes color to white. The cracklings will be trapped inside and uniformly distributed.

Adding Flavors

Follow the above procedure and when the lard is half-way done (becomes semi-liquid), add chopped onion. Add onion carefully as it contains water and the lard may boil over. Then continue as usual.

When chopped onion is added to lard, the lard should be refrigerated. If lard will be kept at room temperature, add whole peeled onion and then discard the onion during filtering. If not kept under refrigeration, chopped onion will decrease the shelf life of the product. This is why it is added to canned products in such a small amount.

OR

Add whole onions, a few cloves of peeled garlic, apples cored and cut in halves, and a bay leaf. Remove those ingredients during filtering. Add spices of your choice: marjoram, coriander or others. Lard consumed as a spread on bread was once very common in Europe and North America, especially those areas where dairy fats and vegetable oils were rare.

How to Render Lard Commercially

Fat trimmings for lard should be kept in the cooler and lard should be made as soon as possible. Always cut the rinds off the fat as they will lower the quality of lard.

1. Grind fat pieces through a small grinder plate. Partially freezing fat trimmings makes the operation easier. The smaller the grind, the easier the oil release by the fat. You could cut the fat trimmings by hand, but this is slower.

2. Get a large kettle and put water in. Use ¾ cup of water per 2.2 (1 kg) of ground fat. The water prevents the lard from scorching. Add all fat and slowly apply the heat. Thee kettle should be filled no more than three-fourths full. Slow is the word; apply the heat gently in order to melt some fat, then you can turn the heat up, however, be aware that the lard tend to be darker when the heat is applied too rapidly. The cooking process will take about 90 minutes.

Using a draining spoon, skim out all the cracklings and any impurities from the surface. Butchers ran the cracklings through a lard press to squeeze out all oil, which was added to that in the kettle.

3. Pour the lard through a piece of cheese cloth into a collecting tank, known as the settling tank.

The best settling tanks were equipped with two faucets: one on the bottom for draining water and impurities, and another faucet about one inch higher on a side of the tank for draining lard.

A. Let the lard to settle for 1-2 hours in the settling tank. The water and solid impurities will settle at the bottom and they will be drawn off first. Now, the lard can be drawn off into containers which should be kept on ice to cool faster.

B. (Second option). Allow lard to settle in a tank for 1-2 hours and draw off the water and impurities. Stir lard with a large paddle until it is creamy and thick and then place into buckets or jars. Such lard will have a better presentation than lard that was poured into containers hot. Cool the containers.

Equipment

To render best quality lard professional butchers used the following equipment:

Rendering kettle. The lard is heated and melted.

Settling tank. Water and impurities accumulate at the bottom. There are always small burnt tissues which cannot be easily filtered, however, they will sink to the bottom of the tank.

Lard cooler with an agitator. The agitator is a propeller type paddle that is turned by a manual crank or the motor. The lard is mixed until creamy and white. Good lard cooler and agitator unit is double jacketed, so that cold water can be run between the walls to cool the lard.

A practical way is to set up settling tank above the cooler/agitator unit, so the lard can be drawn out of the settling tank into agitator. The cooler/agitator unit must be set high enough from the floor for the lard to run into storage containers.

Compound Lard

In hot climate lard may be too soft to handle. The problem can be corrected by mixing pork lard with 10-20% of beef tallow (rendered beef fat) or adding stearin*. Both ingredients are available on internet. You can make your own beef tallow from beef suet and beef fat trimmed from steaks, and other cuts. Grind and render beef fat using the outlined above lard making procedure.

Mix all components together and agitate before placing in containers. If no agitator is available, mix by hand until it is creamy and thick as before. Fill stiff and cool compound lard into containers.

Notes:

If the tank has no faucet at the bottom, dip out the lard from the top without disturbing any water that will be at the bottom. Then, fill the bucket with the remaining lard and water and cool which will harden the lard. The harden lard will float on the top of the water and can be easily taken off.

If you have no cooling tank with an agitator, you may stir the lard by hand occasionally until it gets thick and creamy, and then run it into containers.

The rinds can be frozen and used for head cheese or liver and blood sausages.

*Stearin is obtained from animal fats created as a byproduct of processing beef. It can also be found in tropical plants such as palm. It is used as a hardening agent in the manufacture of candles and soap. Tallow stearin is produced from beef raw materials. It is a highly stable fat suitable in feed applications, soap production and in candles.

The high quality lard is filtered through the cheese cloth, separated from water and impurities, mixed and cooled. Such lard will last long time

Ghee – Its Value and Preparation

Ghee is clarified butter. Although it is prepared completely from butter, its properties, according to Ayurveda, are very different from butter itself. In many cases, ghee is recommended in the diet.

Unless you have access to an Indian Health Food store that sells ghee, you have to prepare it yourself, using the following recipe.

How to Prepare Ghee

1. Place any amount of unsalted butter in a deep Porcelain, Pyrex or stainless steel pan over medium-low heat (be sure that the butter does not scorch while melting). Allow complete melting to occur and then reduce heat to low.

2. In the next 30-40 minutes the water in the butter will boil away (approximately 20% of butter is composed of water). Milk solids will appear on the surface of the liquid and at the bottom of the pan.

3. Be alert to remove the liquid from the heat as the milk solids turn golden brown on the bottom of the pan (otherwise, the ghee may burn). At this point, you may notice that the ghee smells like popcorn and you can see tiny bubbles in the ghee rising from the bottom.

4. Strain the ghee while still hot or warm, pouring it through a cotton cloth into a stainless steel or Pyrex-type container. At this point it is very hot, so you should always be cautious. Another way of doing this is to let the ghee cool down and then strain it by pouring it through a cotton cloth or handkerchief directly into clean glass jars or bowls.

5. Ghee can be stored at room temperature for several weeks and it keeps indefinitely when kept in the refrigerator.