Since Quebec, where we live, went into lockdown, we try to go food shopping less frequently than before. The tactic is that we buy a big piece of meat, cut it into smaller pieces and freeze them.
This time, we bought two packages of pork shoulders with skin and bone, which weighed more than 3 kg in total. There was a lot of fat between the skin and meat, so I made lard from it.
This was my first time making homemade lard, but I found it was not difficult.
There were nearly 450 grams of fat from those two packages. Making lard is basically heating the fat until turning it into a liquid and then leaving it to cool down, but you need to add a little water to stop the fat from burning before melting.
Please remember that you need 10% of water to the weight of fat; if you have 1 kg of pork fat, you have to add 100 ml of water, for example.
Here, I had 450 grams of pork fat, so I put about 50 ml of water in a pot with the fat.
First, it is better to chop the fat finely. In a thick pot, add the pork fat and water, cook them on low to medium heat.
The oil will quickly start coming from the fat.
Please stir it constantly to avoid the fat burning. It took me around 15 minutes until I thought almost all of the oil had come out from the fat. It looked a bit burning brown, but it was fine at the end.
Remove the pan from the heat. Once it’s cooled a bit, filter it through a colander.
My lard was yellowish when it was freshly squeezed.
I thought that it was because I had burnt it, but when it cooled off, it turned into beautiful ivory lard.
I am very satisfied with the result and cannot wait to use it for my next cooking!
