ottawa foodies

Coming from Toronto, we used to get lard from the St-Jacobs market or alternatively from local european grocery stores. We bought some from a store in Gatineau but it had already turned rancid.

Does anyone know where we can pickup a jar/container of lard. Not looking for the shelf stable Tenderflake/store brand stuff but something that is refrigerated.

Thanks!

I can tell you how easy it is to make yourself, but not where to buy it.
Sorry.

I've honestly never thought of making it myself but now see a recipe for making it in the crockpot which seems easy. Do you have a recommendation for a source of pork fat before I go looking at butchers?

Have you checked with a local butcher? Piggy Market or Sasloves may have it.

I actually ended up at Lavergne western beef and they had containers of lard. 5$ for a small container. Will return to get some pork belly to try and make my own sometime.

The pork belly that Lavergne sells already has the leaf lard stripped out of it. They generally discard their leaf lard but if you go ask for some they will save it for you. Monday and Tuesday are the biggest runs of pork and sometimes Wed depending upon demand. So Tuesday is your best bet to go there and ask for it. If you go later in the week it will already be discarded by then and they'll probably tell you to come back next week.

If you want another source I'm sure David at Around The Block could hook you up. As an aside, they were without power for the tornado weekend and could use your business at the moment! (Plus they are the best)

As mentioned, go to a butcher and ask for a couple of pounds of leaf lard. That's specifically the lard that is around a pig's kidneys.

It will be pretty firm, so easy to dice into 1/2" cubes.

Put it into a pot and turn the heat on to less than medium. This will take time. Stir once in a while. You're rendering out fat, so don't worry too much about it sticking. When the lardons have become crunchy, they've released everything that they can. Skim them off and bottle the yellowish liquid. It will turn white when it cools. It doesn't need refrigeration, but I always try to use mine within 6 months.

I use a roasting pan across 2 burners on my stove, but that may not be the method for you.

You can do a search here for 'lardons' to find some other articles on this subject.

Thanks all. I will certainly try making it myself once we get done with this one. Around the Block is on my list of places to visit soon for some dry aged beef.

I have done Rizak's method in both a slow cooker and the oven! The oven was actually the easiest to do once I figured out the right temp was lower than I expected it to be.

Bonus: once it's done, just turn off the oven and walk away for five hours until it's cool so you don't burn yourself. I left mine overnight with no issues.

You can use leaf lard or back fat to make lard. Leaf lard is perfect for making pastry, it won't have a pork flavour to it so the lardons are a bit lack lustre. Back fat is a fantastic fat to render then use to fry eggs, potatoes, it will take your fried rice to the next level of awesome, and the lardons are pretty dang tasty.

Rizak has it right, (cut the fat into cubes a and melt) but I will disagree about the colour. It should be white, not yellowish. Yellowish means the heat was too high, and the quality and stability of the lard won't be as good. Sometimes if I'm rendering (I usually render 10 pounds at a time) the very last jar will be yellowish. That one I will use first, because it is most likely to go rancid first.

You can use your crock pot, oven, or stove top to render the fat, but be sure to keep the temperature very low. You know you've made it right when the fat looks pretty well like coconut oil when you are done, but is still soft and scoopable.

If you want to get maximum yield out of the fat, grind it rather than cube it, but then you don't get those tasty lardons that Rizak mentioned, more like this crumbly stuff instead.