Lard. What is it even for?

[bibbitybobbityyhat]

I am so repulsed and yet I love meat, including all things pork.

I bought some to make pastry with this Christmas. Omg it is ranker than a rank thing on a very rank day! Shall I bin the rest of it? Could I make fat balls for the garden birds and if so does anyone have a simple recipe?

Little yogurt pots, pierce the base and pass a knotted string through the hole - knot on the inside. Ideally you'd use something biodegradable, like a coconut shell and cotton or flax twine, but yogurt pots will do.

Melt the fat, mix in lots of seeds. Any seeds. As the fat starts to congeal, pack it firmly into the containers.

Put in the fridge to set. Store in a sealed tub or bag in the fridge.

BTW Beef dripping makes excellent pastry. But it is the greasiest thing ever. I cannot shift it if I wash up by hand, only the dishwasher shifts it.

Makes the best roast potatoes, also good for pastry. And of course the birds like it.

Oh, and welsh cakes!

Mix it with butter for pastry. Half lard, half butter. Not all lard, ew.

It’s good for roasting potatoes in too.

It’s best use my far is as a weapon. Our lard frequently leaps out of the fridge door to attack DH.

HTH.

Yorkshire puddings. You need the fat to be really hot and vegetable oils don't cut it.

I use it in some Mexican recipes - so if I'm doing carnitas with belly pork - there is lard in that...

Definitely half and half with butter for the best pastry, and agree about roast potatoes and yorkies

Swimming the channel

What is it that bothers you? The taste? The texture?

You can make fat balls, sure.

Lard makes very light pastry because it is so high in saturated fats. Just as butter makes lighter pastry than oil-based spreads such as marge. If you find the taste unpleasant, you need to use more butter.

"Swimming the channel" .

I did do half butter half lard for the pastry - it was still GRIM.

It's the taste that bothers me LRD. I can taste something not nice about it. I will swap back to vegetable shortening and butter next year. Meanwhile, I don't like to waste food.

Hot water pastry! It's the best. Like in a pork pie, only home made is delicious.

Bought lard is often hydrogenated (check the ingredients, it has to say if it is) and it’s trans fat if it is.

YABU lard makes the best pastry.

Hot water pastry. But the smell... oh god the smell...

Be careful with setting the fat balls in the fridge....one of the first threads I read on here was from someone whose husband ate one!

It's the only fat I will use to try pancake batter. Pancakes made in oil are horrendously greasy in comparison. I did not know why it worked so well, but reading snap's post, I guess it is something to do with the heat you can get from melted lard.

• fry

When I went to Poland I discovered bacon and lard on toast. Nicest thing I have ever eaten!!!!

When I went to Poland I discovered bacon and lard on toast. Nicest thing I have ever eaten!!!!

Lard is best for Yorkshire puddings. Makes nice roast potatoes too.

Until you have experienced chips fried in beef dripping you haven't lived...

I put late in shortbread

Lard obviously