Frying lard and boiling tallow PART TWO

PART TWO – How to use lard and tallow

There you have it, a nice big tub of home rendered fat for use in the kitchen. But that is an awful lot of fat just for cooking… What else can rendered fats be used for around the homestead? As it turns out, animal fats have been used throughout history for a myriad of uses, including lighting and soap making. Tallow makes quite good dipped candles, as seen in many a medieval manuscript, even the Vikings used tallow and lard in ceramic candle dishes. Both tallow and lard were used in soap making throughout medieval Europe – especially the London soap makers were known and feared for their smelly craft!

American Guinnea Hogs, an easy to manage heritage breed which roams easily in large grazing areas as well as around the homestead and produces quality meats and by-products like lard.

            Just like in the kitchen, modern people often have the funny idea that animal fats in soap are not good; clogging the pores and making a “heavy” soap. The truth couldn’t be more different! Lard soap is highly compatible with the structure of human cells. Just like lard, our cell membranes consist largely of saturated fats – a big reason why animal fat soaps have nourishing properties plant-based monounsaturated oils can’t deliver. Lard and tallow create a creamy and stable lather, and especially lard has mild moisturizing qualities preventing the soap from drying out the skin. And unlike most plant-based oils, animal fats will make a hard and long-lasting soap bar. It does not need hardening oils like the drying coconut oil and the environmentally unfriendly palm oil, and as a local product it is a much more sustainable soapmaking ingredient. Interestingly, pasture raised beef tallow is very similar to palm oil (both contain high amounts of palmitic acids) and they can be substituted one-to-one in soap recipes. Plus, I just love the idea of ensuring the whole of the animal is used, especially the supposed waste products.

A good project for a chilly fall day: rendering fats on the woodstove (left). 

Tubs of lard, cooling down for storage - and future projects (right).

Making dipped tallow candles

You’ll need one sauce pan, one half-gallon mason jar, and several candle wicks.

Fill the mason jar with crumbled tallow, the harder the better, and place into the sauce pan. Fill the sauce pan with hot water, and heat double boiler-style. You can use commercial wicks from any craft department, or you can make your own from coarse hemp or linen yarn. If the yarn is fairly thin, braid or twist into a thicker diameter. Slowly heat the tallow, and when it has melted dip your wick in and out of the liquid tallow. Keep the wick straight down and wait until the tallow solidifies. Then dip again, quickly, adding a new layer without melting the previous one. Repeat this step until your candle is at a diameter you like. Tallow candles burn less clean than beeswax candles, the primary reason medieval churches had prolific bee yards.

A Viking animal-fat light; an earthenware dish with a center post. The protrusion can have a wick wrapped around it, or, for a big flame, can be inserted into tubular linen-fabric wick.

Making tallow and lard soap

You’ll need a digital scale, two measuring cups, an empty 2-liter soda bottle with cap, some water, sodium hydroxide (lye), one funnel (or two, if you have them), 10 ounces of luke-warm liquid lard or tallow and a bucket of ice water. Always wear protection when working with chemicals.

In a double boiler melt 10 ounces of lard or tallow. No need to boil, only to have it become warm enough to liquify (around 110°-120 °F works well). Measure out 2 fluid ounces of water, and use a funnel to add it to the soda bottle. Using a different dry container, measure out 1.3 weight ounces of lye. Have a bucket of ice water ready to go. Using a second, dry funnel, add the lye to the water in the soda bottle and -immediately- close the cap. Shake and quickly stick the bottom into the ice water, while you keep sloshing the lye, making sure all the lye crystals dissolve. The soda bottle works as a pressure chamber, containing the harsh vapors created by the exothermic reaction of the lye in the liquid. Once the pressure in the bottle lets down and the moisture starts to condense, remove the bottle from the ice water and feel how hot the bottom is. When the bottom is the same temperature as you or a little warmer (similar to the fats), you’re good.

With a funnel, carefully add 10 ounces of liquid lard or tallow to the liquid lye in the soda bottle. Close the cap and shake. Keep shaking until the saponification reaction changes the fatty acids into soapy salts, which you’ll recognize by the thickening of the liquid. When the raw soap is about as thick as custard or apple sauce, you’re good. You can add a few drops of essential oils, or a few pinches of herbs or scrub, at or near this stage – shake well to incorporate throughout. Then remove the cap and let it sit until it solidifies, this step should take a day or two. Cut the top part off the bottle and carefully pop the soap out of the bottom. The bottle will have acted as a mold, and your soap will be formed just like it! Place it on a wire shelf or something similar to dry for about 3 weeks; it can be cut to size in about a week.

My milk and honey soap made with 100% pastured lard, and patterned by lining the mold – a kitchen drawer organizer – with recycled shipping bubble wrap.

Cooking with animal fats

Some of my favorite tastes from our kitchen are connected to using animal fats. I always have a jar of bacon grease around as I found that to be the best to brown pancakes, especially gluten free European crepes. My favorite crust recipe uses lard, and our leaf lard or beef tallow French fries are phenomenal. We believe it is better for our health to use real ingredients in moderation, than use abundant substitutes to fool our body. After having tasted the difference, I hanker for the occasional but perfect pie! Yet another instance where the road to the good life is choosing quality over quantity.

            What exactly makes lard so good in pastries? Why not stick to butter, no pun intended? You are right, butter produces extremely good crusts. But lard produces crusts even flakier than butter due to the difference in melting point. Butter melts into the dough at a lower temperature, and its water content can cause the dough to stick instead of separate into the distinct layers of flaky pastry. Butter is also primarily a saturated fat, where lard is primarily the healthier unsaturated fat. What makes lard more challenging to work with in baking, and why some aspiring cooks have trouble with lard crusts is that butter is easier to work with. Butter retains a workable range for pastry making at a temperature range of 58° to 69 °F, whereas lard only as a malleable-yet-firm consistency at the slightly higher temperature of 75 °F. When at room temperature, lard quickly becomes too soft to work with.

         

 

Gently kneading the butter, lard and sugar with help of the kitchen machine. (left) A beautiful loaf of cold pastry dough, ready to be partitioned into bottom, sides and top.

The best of both worlds could well be the half-lard, half-butter pastry crust. Using the classing baking ratios of 3 parts flour to 2 parts fat and at the most 1 part water, the combined lard and butter recipe makes a most tender and flaky crust. Cut the chilled butter and lard separately into cubes, and at first only cut the butter into the flour. When the butter is worked into pea-sized lumps, cut in the lard, then add just enough cold water to bind the mixture to form a dough.

When using a food processor, keep in mind that when fats are over-processed and get overly hot, the crust will lose its capability to become flaky and can taste dense. Refrigerate the dough for at least one hour before use, it could be made up to three days in advance. If necessary, soften slightly at room temperature before rolling out. If the dough does not roll out well, it is either too cold, or too dry. Adjust your process as needed. In traditional deep-dish Dutch apple pies - this would be Netherlands Dutch, not Pennsylvania Dutch, which is of German heritage – the crust is not rolled but pressed in by hand, as well as the lattice. If you prefer the traditional home-made look, you can also flute or crimp the edge by pushing the rim with your thumb from one hand in between the thumb and index finger of the opposite. Whichever method you use, your guests are not going to care as they will be too distracted licking yummy lard-crust crumbles off their fingers!

Lard pastry deep-dish Dutch apple pie – for a golden-brown crust brush the pastry lattice work with egg yolk.

Traditional all-lard pastry crust

1 ½ cups white whole wheat flour, or unbleached all-purpose flour

½ cup of chilled lard

¼ tsp of salt

3-4 tbs very cold water.

Cut the chilled lard into small slivers. In a bowl, blend the flour and salt, then cut in the butter and lard with a fork; blend until the mixture looks coarse. Sprinkle in the ice water and mix with a fork until the dough clumps together (add more as needed).