Nourished Kitchen» lard

Recipe: Green Beans with Bacon and Shallots

Jenny — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 02:53:48 +0000

Green beans with bacon will always find a place in my heart, and in my kitchen. I remember, even as a very young girl, visiting my godparents in a tiny, drawn and weathered town on the outskirts of Tulsa, Oklahoma. At dinner time, I’d sit at their table which, large as it was, never seemed to have enough room for all the boisterous, warm-hearted relatives who came for supper. Sitting at the table, I’d eagerly await my godmother’s classic comfort food. No potato was served without gravy. No strawberry served without cream. And, definitely, no green bean served without bacon. In many ways, this recipe is an homage to her – my godmother who cared for me when I was very little, and in whose yard I hunted Easter eggs, and who nourished me at her table – green beans with bacon and all.

As we endeavor to eat meals with plentiful servings of vegetables, and to always serve our vegetables with wholesome fat, this recipe for green beans with bacon and shallots appears at the supper table quite often – an accompaniment for classic meatloaf or roast chicken with herbs. Smoky and salty, pastured bacon provides a perfect foil to the sweet, crisp green beans while caramelized shallots bring the entire dish together; afterall, everything is better with caramelized shallots.(...)
Click here to read the rest of Recipe: Green Beans with Bacon and Shallots (568 words)

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for Nourished Kitchen, 2010. | Permalink |

Making Fat: How to Render Lard

Jenny — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 07:30:53 +0000

Rendering lard is a lost art – a worthwhile technique forgotten in a fat-phobic, Lean Cuisine-centered culture. Many cooks, seeking out local foods and forgotten traditions, have rediscovered how to render lard in their homes. Learning how to render lard needn’t be a difficult task; it requires clean fat, clean water, a good stock pot and a quiet afternoon in the kitchen. The reward of a beautiful, creamy white jar full of freshly rendered, pastured lard is worth the minimal effort.

Pastured lard is a remarkably good source of vitamin D and of monounsaturated fat – the same fatty acid found in olive oil and avocado that is heralded for its benefits to cardiovascular health. Odd that lard, given its fatty acid profile and vitamin content, earned such a bad rap over the last few decades. Like many wholesome, nourishing fats, lard seems to have been swept aside for a time, but it’s quickly earning a much-deserved renaissance – ensuring that taking the time to learn how to render lard is worth your effort both in terms of its redeeming nutritional value as well as in celebration of the wealth and variety of your local foodshed. Hogs, and their nutrient-dense fat, are widely available.

How to Render Lard on the Stove top

I prefer to render lard on the stove top, so if you’re learning how to render lard from this method, take care to ensure you have a high-quality, heavy bottomed stock pot. Two and one-half pounds of fresh leaf lard or hog fat will produce approximately one-half gallon of creamy, nutrient-dense fat. For more step-by-step images, check out the photostream on flickr.

Ingredients for Rendering Lard

2 ½ pounds of pastured leaf lard or hog fat
½ cup filtered water

Stovetop Method for Rendering Lard

With a sharp knife, trim any blood spots or remaining meat from the lard.
Chop the fat into ½-inch cubes.
Add the chopped fat and the filtered water to a heavy bottomed stock pot and simmer over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally.
After about 45 minutes to one hour, the water will evaporate, the fat will begin to melt and the cracklings – little bits of browned fat – will begin to float to the surface of the pot. Continue to gently stir the melted fat periodically, taking care not to let it splatter.
Eventually those cracklings will sink to the bottom of the stock pot, at that point you may remove your pot from the heat.
Line a fine mesh sieve with a 100% cotton cheesecloth and strain the melted fat, reserving the cracklings for another use (they’re quite nice salted and eaten as a snack or served in place of breadcrumbs in a gratin).
Pour the melted fat into mason jars and allow to cool. The melted fat will be golden-brown in color, but, when cooled, will appear a creamy white.
Use your freshly rendered lard in pastries or as a fat for braising vegetables or seasoning meats.

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for Nourished Kitchen, 2010. | Permalink |

Reader Questions: Animal Fat & Lactic Acid Fermentation

Jenny — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 17:00:13 +0000

Ricki asked:

Actually … Ricki commented on Fats for Cooking and Fats to Eat Uncooked a few days ago, but I thought it was such an insightful and good question that I wanted to give it greater visibility.

Q: Thanks for the great info re: cooking fats and oils. Just wondering about the source of the info, as I was taught that all animal fats are primarily saturated.

A: Animal fats, like vegetable fats, contain the full spectrum of fats including saturated fats, mono- and polyunsaturated fats; however, lard and poultry fat contain higher amounts of monounsaturated fats than saturated fats so are primarily monounsaturated fats. This info is sourced from NutritionData.com.

For example, lard is approximately 45% monounsaturated fat, 39% saturated fat and 16% polyunsaturated fat. Goose fat is 57% monounsaturated, 27% saturated and 16% polyunsaturated. So their highest proportion of fat is monounsaturated. By contrast beef tallow is 50% saturated, 43% monounsaturated and 7% polyunsaturated so it’s classified differently.

A number of animal fats are primarily composed of saturated fat; however, the same holds true for plant-based fats as well. Of course, despite current recommendations, saturated fats are not to be avoided in their entirety; rather, they convey significant health benefits. Lauric acid for example can boost the immune system, and stearic acid is known to lower cholesterol levels.

Robin asked:

Q: How does lactic acid fermentation preserve food?

A: Lactic acid fermentation has been used for millenia to preserve all sorts of food including milk in the form of yogurt and kefir, sauerkraut in the case of cabbage, sauerrÃ¼ben in the case of turnips. And this traditional method of food preservation has been used without any marked adverse side effects for thousands of years; rather, these foods seem to benefit our health and assist with proper immune system function.

The actual mechanisms behind why lactic acid fermentation works to preserve food are interesting. In fermentation, natural beneficial bacteria metabolize the natural sugars and other compounds in food and produce lactic acid as a byproduct of that metabolic process. This lactic acid then, in turn, creates an acidic environment. That’s why milk is sweet, but yogurt is sour and why real, lacto-fermented sauerkraut can make you pucker your mouth. The environment created by the lactic acid producing bacteria is too acidic for other bacteria – particularly pathogenic bacteria – to proliferate. Since pathogenic and other bacteria that could cause spoilage cannot proliferate in the now acidic environment, the food is naturally preserved.

Interestingly, food reasearchers are examining ways to capture antimicrobial metabolites created by lactic-acif producing bacterial for use as food preservatives. I think, however, that you should just eat real food. Read this post for more information on the benefits of lactic acid fermentation.

Do you have a question about traditional foods, growing your local foodshed or health and wellness? Please contact me.

Photo Credit: Bacillus subtilis (natto) by Kung-Ta Lee

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for Nourished Kitchen, 2009. | Permalink |

Fats for Cooking & Fats to Eat Uncooked

Jenny — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 16:30:17 +0000

Fats contribute a great deal to food and cooking, but not every fat is suitable for every purpose. Just as not every fat is suitable for cooking, neither is every oil available on your supermarket shelves suitable for a nutritious and healthy diet. Certain fats such as beef tallow and coconut oil have been used for a very long time, while other fats such as cottonseed oil are very new to the human diet.

As a general rule, saturated fats are suitable for cooking while monounsaturated fats are suitable for light cooking and polyunsaturated fats should not be cooked at all. Most cooking fats contain a combination of each saturated, mono- and poly-unsaturated fats.

Saturated Fats for Cooking

Saturated fats, thanks to their molecular structure, are heat stable. You can identify saturated fat readily because it stays solid at room temperature. Due to its molecular stability, saturated fat is not as subject to oxidation as the less stable mono- and polyunsaturated oils. Saturated fats are not chemically altered by cooking and so are suitable for high- and low-heat cooking. You can, and should, certainly eat them raw as well.

Beef Suet from Grass-finished Animals
Beef Tallow from Grass-finished Animals
Mutton Tallow from Grass-finished Animals
Unrefined Cocoa Butter
Unrefined Coconut Oil
Palm Kernel Oil
Ghee from Grass-fed Cows

Monounsaturated Fats to Cook Gently

Some fats are contain ample saturated fat which is heat-stable and suitable for cooking, but also contain large amounts of monounsaturated fatty acids which are less heat-stable and more likely to oxidize than saturated fats (but are less likely to oxidize compared to polyunsaturated fats). Alternatively, as in the case of butter, contain other compounds like milk solids which may necessitate cooking them gently. The following fats should be heated gently due to a high monounsaturated fat content, but are still good fats for cooking.

Lard from Pastured Hogs
Bacon Grease from Pastured Hogs
Goose Fat from Pastured Birds
Duck Fat from Pastured Birds
Schmaltz from Pastured Chickens
Butter (While it should be classified more as a saturated fat due to its fatty acid profile, butter also contains milk fats which lower its smoke point and therefore it should be eaten raw or gently cooked.)

Monounsaturated & Polyunsaturated Fats to Eat Fresh & Raw

Polyunsaturated fats, like the other fats, play a vital role in health and wellness; however, they are not stable fats like their saturated counterparts. Polyunsaturated fats go rancid easily and oxidize quickly when heated. These fats should be traditionally prepared through cold-pressing and should be left in their natural and unrefined state. US readers should take great care in purchasing cold-pressed oils as the term “cold pressing” is not regulated in the United States. Expeller pressed oils extract the oil from its source under great pressure, and pressure creates friction and friction creates heat – sometimes a great deal of heat, so unless you know for certain that the pressure created by the expeller during extraction did not heat the oil to excess, it’s best to avoid expeller pressed oils.

Traditional cold pressed oils offer a complex flavor not achieved through other means, so not only does your body benefit from cold pressing but your meals benefit as well. Polyunsaturated fats are delicate fats and should be treated accordingly: they’re not suitable for cooking, but can be used to dress salads and condiments.

Many polyunsaturated fats – particularly nut oils – are very high in Omega 6 fatty acids. While omega 6 fatty acids play an important role in health, they are too prevalent in the diet of most people, so I have excluded them from this list.

Extra Virgin Unrefined Olive Oil (Olive oil is comprised mostly of monounsaturated fats, and can be used for very light cooking; however, that destroys its vitamin E and I simply prefer to eat it uncooked.)
Flaxseed Oil

Did you like this post? Please let me know by leaving a comment. Don't forget to find Nourished Kitchen on Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. © Jenny for Nourished Kitchen, 2009. | Permalink |