From The Farm Kitchen: Rendering Lard

From The Farm Kitchen: Rendering Leaf Lard  

Lard has long been used in farm kitchens as a principle ingredient in pie crusts and as a cooking fat.  Leaf lard is the rendered leaf fat that comes from the kidney of the pig. This lard is mellow, tender and is perfect for baking, or cooking potatoes! This blog provides a quick and easy way to make your own leaf lard in your home. 

Ingredients and Costing 

2 lbs of Mabel May Farms pastured leaf pork fat (ground) - $8.00 

Makes 2, 500 ml jars of leaf lard minimum 

Rendering Leaf Fat into Leaf Lard 

Directions 

• Thaw leaf fat overnight in fridge.
• Prepare a cheese cloth sieve and clean jars for storage of lard. 
• Place leaf fat in the crock pot on low for 4 hours. 
• The leaf lard will start to render/ melt and the small pieces will start to brown. 
• Ladle hot lard into cheese cloth into jar (be careful the lard is really hot!) 
• If your after the cracking for salads, continue to render the lard until you get the desired cracking. 
• Note: the longer you render the lard the more it "cooks" I find the whitest lard comes from the first processing round. This is the lard that has the least pork flavours and works best for baked good. 
• Leave the lard to cool in the jar on the counter. General understanding is that the slower it cools the better the lard.  The lard will crystallize and turn a rich white color. If the lard is a little brown that is OK! It may just have a slight pork flavour, and is still great to use as a cooking fat. 
• Refrigerate for up to 2 months or freeze. 

Visual Step By Step