Lard, the Precursor to Real Donuts

I love donuts. I love fries. But I rarely eat them because of the oils they are fried in. If you would like to be disgusted too, read this article. If you prefer blissful ignorance, I understand. 

In an attempt both to convince my children that their mother is normal and to help them feel like they aren't missing out on any of the good stuff, every time I deny them fried foods I explain, "Of course you can eat that! Just not those ones, because they're fried in rancid disgusting unhealthy vegetable oils. I'll make that at home, ok?" But quite some time has passed, and I haven't had one single morning when rendering lard and frying donuts, or whatever the forbidden food is, sounded like fun. So I have to do it whether I feel like it or not, and today I will render lard.  

I tried this once maybe two years ago. I researched, rendered, and fried. The first donut, the guinea pig donut, was fried before the lard was hot enough. Too cowardly to try a dessert cooked in animal fat, I handed it to my sister who courageously bit down before gagging and squealing, "It tastes like PIG!" So the moral of that story is to make sure your fat is hot enough before you begin frying. The rest of the donuts were powdery sweet miracles.

This is how my lard came from the butcher. It was frozen, so I had to defrost it first. The horrific bloody spray is there because someone blew a fuse and we didn't realize for three days that our freezer wasn't running. $1000 of meat defrosted and bled all over. It was awful and hopefully the closest I will ever get to a murder scene. I had company over for dinner when I realized what had happened and I couldn't even fake nonchalance. 

Rendering lard is very simple unless you only do it once every two years and have forgotten how in the meantime. So whether it's been a while or this is your first time, here's how you do it. If you actually follow this, please read through the whole thing before you start. 

Slightly bacon-y looking strips of luscious fat. 

First you have to cut it up into tiny little pieces. Unfortunately, I was already halfway through before I remembered I could just throw it in the processor, which was much faster. If you look at the next picture, you'll see that the lard resembles canned tuna. That is what came out of my processor. I had to do it in a few batches. 

Here is where you have to make a decision. How much do you trust your slow cooker? I trusted mine, and it actually boiled the fat, which is not good if you don't want your lard to smell like bacon. You have to do this at a low temperature. So I took the whole insert out of the crockpot and put it in the oven at 200 degrees. 

Whichever method you choose, you may put 1/4 cup of water in at the bottom as extra insurance against burning. 

It will look like this as it continues to melt down. 

Once it looks soupy you can strain it. I started straining early because I wanted to speed the process up in time for dinner, but I think you can strain it all at the end instead of bit by bit. Line a strainer with cheesecloth and pour the golden liquid through to strain out any meat bits. I did not line my strainer, and this was a mistake. Apparently the meat bits can be returned to a pan and fried until it looks like something you'd like to top a salad with. I haven't tried this yet. 

Because this batch of lard got a little overheated, I decided to use it to fry some lumpia tonight instead of the donuts I had promised. I will be honest. The entire house reeked of fried food. It was a little off-putting, and while I stood over the boiling hot golden lava on my stove I thought I would never do this again. However, minutes later my children polished off all their lumpia and even thanked me sincerely for making dinner. Fried food tastes amazing, and I had forgotten this fact. So maybe I will fry again once the fumes clear. 

For the one person who ever reads this far, I feel compelled to mention that I bought new workout pants moments before I started posting about lard. Does this make me an optimist, or just conflicted? You can tell me what you think.