Calibrate my expectations re: Lard

December 21, 2020 11:24 AM

Okay I made lard for the first time. The fat came packaged as “pork fat” with my half hog purchase. Some was definitely back fat and some seemed like possibly kidney fat. I rendered it at 225 and the lard is snowy white so it should be pretty far toward “mild” on the flavor spectrum but it seems very porky to me and I can’t imagine using it in any kind of sweet pastry and even savory seems maybe a little dubious. But I am naive in the ways of lard. What should I be expecting here?
posted by HotToddy to Food & Drink (25 answers total)

I’m by no means an expert but I’ve used lard in pastries and for that you’re generally looking for “leaf lard” which is visceral fat and not back fat. It’s soft and mild tasting. A quick google gave me this long explanation.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 11:30 AM on December 21, 2020 [3 favorites]

And reading that more carefully, I found the note about wet rendering and dry rendering, so maybe if you just had the lard in the pot by itself it would have a more intense flavor than if you rendered it with water; I’m just assuming that would go for other lard and not just leaf lard.
posted by jeweled accumulation at 11:33 AM on December 21, 2020

Response by poster: I guess part of my question is what does traditional homemade lard taste like. Because there is only a little bit of kidney fat in a hog, I’m sure most lard was made from back fat (even if leaf lard is preferable) so were people just not using regular lard for pastry? Or did everything taste kind of porky? And just how porky should lard from back fat taste?
posted by HotToddy at 11:39 AM on December 21, 2020

I render the lard when I cook pork, and it's porky. I spread it on toast and use it in things where the porky flavor is an asset, like bean soups.

I think snowy white just means that you got the cracklings and little meaty bits out, it doesn't necessarily mean you'll get a mild flavor.
posted by momus_window at 11:48 AM on December 21, 2020 [2 favorites]

Lard definitely should not be identifiably porky, any more than butter is beefy.

I’m afraid I just buy it from the shop, I have no idea how to get it tasting right. But it is widely used in baking over here, I’ve used plenty of brands, and it has never had any taste whatsoever.
posted by tinkletown at 11:49 AM on December 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

I am not versed in lard. But I would think of it like gelatin.

You can make jello from scratch at home by making gelatin from bones. That homemade gelatin will always taste of the animal your gelatin came from, at least a bit. Back in the day it tasted like the animal, too. You can't replicate the processing power of store bought gelatin in a home kitchen no matter how hard you try. I think to a certain extent, home rendered stuff will always taste "imperfect" compared to what we're able to purchase that's been factory-produced.

Lard definitely should not be identifiably porky, any more than butter is beefy.
Butter comes from milk fat though, not cow fat? Cream doesn't taste like a cow.
posted by phunniemee at 11:55 AM on December 21, 2020 [12 favorites]

I get what is labeled as "refined" lard (from mangalitsa pigs from a local farm) for pie baking and it is not porky at all. There is a very faint savory smell from it when it's solid but in a sweet crust it's definitely a "this has been properly salted" flavor rather than a "this is bacon" flavor.
posted by bcwinters at 11:58 AM on December 21, 2020

Bet you could make some delicious pastry for meat pies with it though.

Or basically any recipe by these two.
posted by EllaEm at 12:11 PM on December 21, 2020 [5 favorites]

Also, for frying tortillas.
posted by SemiSalt at 12:21 PM on December 21, 2020 [4 favorites]

There is going to be a lot of variety in the way lard tastes. Some will taste a lot like pork, and some won't at all. This Cooks Illustrated article gives the results of their taste testing.
posted by FencingGal at 12:24 PM on December 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

I think leaf fat is used more for suet (which is also not porky, by the way).

I wonder if remelting it in a pan of water would give somewhere for the porky flavour to go.
posted by How much is that froggie in the window at 12:33 PM on December 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

I make my own lard by the highly unscientific method of just saving the juices and fat when I cook ribs or pork butt. The juices end up as the starter for soup broth; the fat gets used for pastry. The lard is distinctly pork-like, but the cooked pastry is not; it just has more flavor than crust made with crisco (which is my only other reference point.)

I think it's great for both sweet and savory dishes, personally, but I can see how someone used to a milder flavor might prefer that in sweet pies.
posted by ook at 2:12 PM on December 21, 2020 [2 favorites]

Yeah, good lard doesn’t taste porky at all.
As for what you can do with your lard, how about some homemade refried beans?
posted by Thorzdad at 2:13 PM on December 21, 2020 [3 favorites]

I'm also inexperience in rendering pork lard, but when I use store-bought lard in a pie crust or in biscuits, it is the subtle "savory" flavor that I prefer to shortening or butter. Or only butter. A little butter; a little lard... yum.
posted by tmdonahue at 2:24 PM on December 21, 2020 [2 favorites]

For the record suet is rendered beef fat (a better analogy to lard, than butter) and does have a slightly meaty aroma.
posted by brookeb at 3:21 PM on December 21, 2020 [4 favorites]

I've rendered my own lard from mixed pork fat, not solely leaf lard and not the water method. The resulting lard smelled savory and a little porky. Excellent for the crusts for meat pies and savory hand pies. When I used it for sweet pastries, I used a half lard and half butter. I used this for pie crust and cookies. Definite savory smell while mixing and cooking. I could still detect a hint or that post cooking; several others in my household at the time, who knew I used lard, could not smell or taste it.
posted by carrioncomfort at 3:22 PM on December 21, 2020 [2 favorites]

I make lard fairly frequently. There’s always a pretty wide variation in the flavor; separating out the leaf fat and rendering it separately will always taste more mild than what you’ll get from scraps or the back fat. If you leave the cracklings in the fat for too long, they will also impart more flavor to the lard.

As far as using what you have now... use it anywhere you might want some porky flavor! Refried beans, searing pork chops, roasting Brussels sprouts, and on and on. Anywhere you’d use butter, try using the lard instead. You could even whip it and spread it on bread as a fancy appetizer.
posted by backseatpilot at 3:43 PM on December 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

Proper carnitas is poached in lard. Porky flavor is welcome there.
posted by Hollywood Upstairs Medical College at 4:07 PM on December 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

Uhhh I've been making pie crust with grocery store lard for YEARS and it ALWAYS tastes porky. That...is the appeal...
posted by Temeraria at 9:06 PM on December 21, 2020 [1 favorite]

I have used lard from a local butcher shop, and it is snow white and tastes noticably porky (unlike the mass-produced stuff you find in the grocery store, which tastes like nothing). It is delicious in meat pie crusts; I also really liked the way it tasted in a pecan pie crust (it was the perfect mix of savory and sweet), but I can't imagine it tasting right in most desserts.
posted by ourobouros at 6:29 AM on December 22, 2020

Lard I buy at butcher or market has porky overtones — yum! The butcher’s lard has flavour variance; commercially made is consistent.
posted by lemon_icing at 6:37 AM on December 22, 2020 [1 favorite]

Uhhh I've been making pie crust with grocery store lard for YEARS and it ALWAYS tastes porky. That...is the appeal...

Ya I disagree with everyone saying lard doesn't tast porky. Baked goods with lard... Ya I can smell if a neighbor 2 doors down is making pie crust with lard in it. And by taste pie crusts with lard in them have a subtle but distinct savory taste I would have no problem identifying as "porky"

Fwiw just make a pie crust or something. You're out an hour and $.75 of ingredients... Taste the result and see what you think.
posted by chasles at 8:34 AM on December 22, 2020 [2 favorites]

In Hungary we eat a lot of lard, which you can get in tubs next to the butter in the supermarket dairy section. It smells porky, yes. Among the many things you can do with it are fry chicken in it, or shnitzel - it may not seem healthy but it fries so hot it actually doesn't get absorbed into the food as much and the end product is actually less greasy. The first rule of Hungarian cooking as set by restauranteur Karoly Gundel in 1890 was "Step 1: always fry onions in lard."

We - and just about everybody from Poland down through the Balkans - eat savory lard biscuits called pogácsa (in Hungarian.) Basically a heavy yet flakey moist biscuit that is the base line snack for people in a rush or you put a plate of them out for guests at a party. (Turkish pogaca, however, are a light breakfast pastry with no lard involved!) Common variants are the pork skin crackling version, usually baked using lard or the various cheese pogacsa styles, which in city bakeries use butter but... never in the countryside! Most of the English language recipes for pogacsa on the internet use butter... but if you read Hungarian the originals use lard. There is also lard bread, a snack found in 85% of Hungarian bars: a slice of bread smeared with lard, dusted with paprika and red onion slices.
posted by zaelic at 8:57 AM on December 22, 2020 [2 favorites]

I wouldn't mind an apple pie with a faintly bacony crust, personally.
posted by rikschell at 9:32 AM on December 22, 2020 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Thanks all! I think a key bit of info is that the pork flavor is much diminished when baked into a pie crust. I am going to embark on a tourtiere with a lard crust as a safe first venture into porky pastry and can evaluate how strong the flavor is. I put it in a batch of beans last night and it was delicious. I appreciate all the different perspectives on this!
posted by HotToddy at 10:42 AM on December 22, 2020 [4 favorites]