It’s now a fact in the Tummy Treasure kitchen. Lard produces a FAR superior pie crust.
I mentioned a few weeks ago that we’d gotten a pig, and one of the things that came from the pig was the fat. I took one day a week ago and very slowly rendered that fat into lard. It literally took me all day- and I only did half the fat! But in the end I had nine little half-pint jars of lard. Before I forged ahead on rendering the rest of the fat, I wanted to try it in my pie crust and see if it made a difference.
Boy, did it ever! I’ve really been struggling with pie crusts lately. I’ve been using organic palm shortening, which does work well, but I’ve been finding the dough a little difficult to work with. So much so that the thought of baking a pie just made me groan! But this past Friday I took one of my little jars of lard, a small bit of butter, and followed a recently favored recipe for pie crust. First of all, the dough was pure pleasure to work with straight out of the fridge. It didn’t firm up too much to roll out, and it just rolled smoothly and evenly. The real proof came when we ate that cherry pie. The crust was so delicious- tender and flaky- even around the edges where the dough tends to be a little thicker from rolling it over on itself. Every bite was delicious- and the kids ate their crusts, which is also a tell-tale sign. I had made enough crust for two pies, so the cherry pie was quickly followed by a blueberry pie, and the report is unanimous. Lard makes a far superior pie crust.
Next I’m going to try the lard pie crust without adding butter as well and see how that works out. In the meantime, I’m looking for another open day to render down the second half of that lard to put in the freezer. Right now I have enough lard to get us through the holidays, but it would be nice to have more on hand. I’d also like to see what happens if I use the lard in biscuits. Maybe with the next rendering I’ll share my process, but honestly, if you go to The Great Google and search for how to render lard, there are several bloggers out there who have already done the work there. I know our culture has been pretty anti-lard, but things are changing, and the saturated fats once considered evil are more and more being found to be preferable to the fake and overly processed vegetable oils that make up a significant portion of the Standard America Diet.
We’re going to need another pig.