Top Blog Recipes

4 Jan 2016

PERFECT ROAST CRACKLING AND RENDERED DOWN LARD

When one of our whole pigs comes back from the farm butcher, my first job is to render down the spare back fat and skin to make roast crackling lard, the side product of this is outstanding fresh salty crispy crackling that my whole family turns up to devour!

Cooking Time 1 hrs


This is really easy to achieve without all the fuss of various methods, I just pat dry the skin with paper roll, then sprinkle generously with sea salt, place in a wide shallow roasting tin then pre-heat your oven to 200-220 degrees C, pop the tray in to the oven and leave to roast and crackle up for approx one hour, once crispy all over remove from the oven and make sure you get chef's perks on the first serving before you let everyone else dive in.

Gorgeous Roast Crackling Lard
This you can do seperatly in its own tin, but I actually place my back fat under the soon to be crackling skin so that all the roast crackling flavours infuse the lard as it renders down in the roasting tin, every half hour or so I drain the rendered down fat from the roasting tin in to a loaf tin, keep repeating this until the fat is not releasing anymore fat, at this stage I often find that the crackling is also perfectly crispy, in all around an hour.


Once cooled place the loaf tin in the fridge to get cold and set the lard, then I turn out the loaf of lard and cut into four or five blocks, wrap in greaseproof paper and store in the fridge for a few weeks or freeze to use as and when you need some.


No comments:

Post a Comment