Larding The Pantry

Pure As The Driven Snow

As some of you may recall, late last year I embarked on an attempt to cure my own prosciutto.

And now, as the first stage of that nearly 2 year process draws to a close, we’ve come to one of the more time-consuming and arduous tasks.

Having been rested in a salt and herb coat for quite some time now, the prosciutto is nearly ready to be smeared with a mixture of lard and black pepper and hung to be aged until it’s magically delicious.

Of course, to get to that point, one has to have a fair amount of lard.

Lucky for me I bought half a pig last summer, which came with its own lion’s share of fat.  As you may know, fat can eventually be rendered down into lard.

Which is exactly why I spent most of my Saturday cooking down 10 (of approximately 30) pounds of pork fat I had in the freezer.  The prosciutto won’t require nearly that much, but if I’m going to the trouble, I might as well render some down for myself, too.

But, instead of using the stovetop approach recommended by our organic grocer Bob, I consulted Jennifer McLagan’s Fat and found that it suggested rendering large quantities with the consistent heat of an oven, which is a decidedly more laid back, hands-off approach that I could wholeheartedly get behind.

So, after nearly an hour spent cubing semi-frozen pork fat with a cleaver, I boffed the whole lot into the biggest oven-safe pot I have (my lovely ginormous stainless steel stockpot from Udeal) and settled in for a long afternoon, checking on the fat approximately once per hour and giving it a stir.

Nearly 5 hours later this is all the action that’s happened at 250*:

After 4.5 Hours

Now, because it’s all fat, there is a little bit of water in there (McLagan recommends about 1/3 cup per pound) that will evaporate as the fat slowly melts, and at the same time prevents it from burning.

Something tells me it’s going to be a long night.

Until next time…

Tags: , , , , , , ,

2 Responses to “Larding The Pantry”

  1. [...] the Foodie (me) and the Everyman (my boyfriend) talk restaurants and food in the GTA « Larding The Pantry Jan 31 [...]

  2. [...] may also have noticed that this past weekend I rendered down the better part of 10 pounds of pork fat into lard, the majority of which has been earmarked for sealing the prosciutto.  Even after taking that into [...]

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.