Sharon Karpinski

September 7, 2014 at 12:09pm

Lard and butter make piecrust. Crisco makes an artery-clogging piecrust even worse for you than lard and butter because it's hydrogenated. Actually, lard is a less saturated fat than butter. Unfortunately, supermarket lard is partially hydrogenated. I make my own lard. It's easy---go to a quality butcher for clear pig fat. Leaf kidney fat makes the best lard but it's hard to come by. I get excellent results with dense white fat with all traces of meat removed. Then---just put the cubed fat into a thick-bottomed pan and let it melt slowly over a very low flame. When you've rendered the fat down to a clear liquid plus browned connective tissue, a.k.a. "cracklings", measure the lard into muffin cups so that each measured amount is what you need for one piecrust, and put the muffin pans in the freezer. When the lard resembles white hockey pucks, remove from the muffin pans and individually freeze each portion. Frozen, this keeps for up to a year. It takes time to render the fat, but almost no attention from the cook. Just keep the flame very, very low.
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