Cutting and Curing Meats
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the lard
Remove the skin from the lard and cut it into pieces.
Place the lard in a kettle with water and heat until the water evaporates.
Once the fat is clear, drain off the lard and strain it into stone crocks.
Treat and strain
Sprinkle in 1 tablespoon of baking soda for every 5 gallons of lard before removing from heat, stirring constantly to prevent foaming over.
Strain the lard using a towel over a colander, twisting to extract all the fat.
Place the cracklings in a separate vessel and continue straining the lard.
Cool and seal
Set the jars in a cool place and stir frequently with a wooden spoon to cool evenly.
Once cooled, cut out the lard and pour melted lard over it until smooth.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Leaf lard
- Provides the fat that is rendered and preserved as the main product of the recipe.
- Baking soda
- Neutralizes free fatty acids in the rendered lard, helping it keep better and resist rancidity.
The step that matters
Adding the baking soda. Baking soda reacts with the hot fat and can cause it to foam up and boil over. Stirring constantly keeps the foam from spilling and distributes the alkali evenly through the lard.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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