Rendering Lard

I don't know how Kate McDermott (Art of the Pie) keeps herself in leaf lard, what with the number of classes she gives every month. But tonight I'm going to channel Kate and everyone I've known who swear by lard in pie crust and render a bit of my own. Leaf lard it's not, but it's from our pig, so I know it was well loved in its life, lived locally and healthy, and is cherished each time I open the freezer door.

From what I've read about rendering lard, I can do this a couple of ways:

• Stovetop
  Can move a little faster because you're there to monitor the progress, but you've got to stand there sweating in pig grease until it's all done.
• Oven - higher heat
  A little riskier, may cause plenty of splatters - which increases the chances of a nice grease fire. But it will take less time than the next option...
• Oven - low heat
  Overnight, covered at 200F. Wake to the smell of rendered lard in your lungs. Mmmmm.

I'm going to take the risky route. Rendering lard's been done for decades. How much can I screw it up?

While dinner's on the stove, I've heated up the oven and tossed in our giant dutch oven with about a cup of water at the bottom. This is supposed to prevent the rendering lard from sticking to the bottom of the pan (and burning), and will eventually evaporate off leaving some natty chitlins and beautiful lard. Once the whole thing is cooled, I'll pour it through cheesecloth to get any last remaining bits out. The dog will love me.

Tonight, we render!

*****PostScript*****
So.
Not knowing where this fat came from was probably our downfall. I don't mean where - I know it was from our pig. I mean where on the pig. From the smell of our house after heating up 5lbs of lard, I would guess it came from somewhere in the region of the lower intestine.

The crispy-ish tissue we thought was lard looked like a giant inflated balloon - it clearly had pockets of air (which were filled with hot lard, as my hands quickly discovered) and the smell of a barnyard. I'd smelled that before when I tried pork bung at a Malaysian restaurant - I can't get the smell out of my nose, so when the house started smelling like that, the dog went nuts and we pulled out the incense to cover the whole mess up, determined to sally forth.

In the end, it did produce clear (and then white, when cooled) lard, about a quart of it. We could have rendered it longer, but the combination of barnyard and nag champa was just too much to bear any longer. The next morning I took a whiff of the cooled lard - it's pretty clean smelling, but there's still a faint stinky to it. I might try to make a meat pie with it (no fruit pies, heavens no!), or Todd will use it to confit some belly.

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