This year is all about saving money, reducing waste and becoming more self sufficient so with al that in mind we decided to give rendering our own lard a go. After reading about it in Kay Baxters 'Change of Heart' we thought it looked straight forward enough to have a go the next time we butchered a sheep.
This is the recipe we followed
Turn your oven to 225 degrees C, and use your largest baking dish that has a lid.
Cut up fat, the smaller the pieces the quicker the rendering and the more lard you will get out of it. When the pieces of fat no longer change (get smaller) it is time to let it cool a little and strain into your lard container.
Sounds simple and it really was. It took longer than I expected, 45 mins to an hour. But the product we were left with was great and delicious for stir-frying, cooking omelets, anything really!
The fat we used was internal fat from around the organs, it was clean and white, and there was rather a lot of it on this particular animal. We put it in a bowl then left in the fridge for a couple of days to harder, then we were left with this (pictured below).
I wasn't sure how it would go, so cut up about a quarter of it for the first batch
Once strained we left it to cool
And this was the finished product!
All in all it was a really simple process for a great product. And there is still plenty left over to make some more batches.......and maybe some soap?? Watch this space!
Happy growing :)
