Grasso, strutto, sego

A long mysterious title for this post... All these words relate to fat! As I mentioned in the previous post, we started being interested in lard some time ago. We got a first jar of 'manteca' in a Mexican store, which was the closest thing to lard we could find. We were both surprised it wasn't in the refrigerated section, and in fact it turned out that the box did not really just contain lard, but also a variety of hydrogenated fats, and most likely preservatives. Anyway, that was a good start, and we made really good tacos fried in lard, and pies such as the one I described in the previous post. Good stuff!

However, shortly after these first experiments, we also bought a huge amount of pork meat, and proceeded to cut it and freeze it as usual. Some pieces of fat scraps were left out, and Matt decided that instead of throwing them away, he would try to render them and make lard. So, here are the first two words of the title: grasso is fat, and strutto is lard. He cut the fat into cubes and boiled them with a little water, till most of the fat came out. Then he removed the solid pieces of fat leftover, and refrigerated the liquid. The fat solidified and the water remained below. After another round of boiling and solidification, he siphoned the water away and was left with nice looking, very bright lard. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of this first lard attempt. Another strawberry-rhubarb pie came out with the homemade lard, and the result was really good.

Excited by this success, we went to our favorite grocery store in the area: 99 Ranch, a Chinese grocery store in El Cerrito, where we get all our veggies and the best seafood in the area. Considering that they sell all sorts of meat (as you will read in a next post), we were sure we could buy pig fat there. However, at the store, the butcher, slightly embarrassed, told us that he didn't have any to sell us. Apparently the Mexicans in the area buy it all! Evidently, Mexicans know how to cook :). However, the butcher said, we could have some beef fat, instead. So, he just gave us completely for free 4 pounds of beef fat. Why couldn't we transform that into lard, we thought, going home.

I read online and on the food bible 'McGhee' about the difference between beef and pork fat. It turns out that rendered pork fat is lard, whereas rendered beef fat is tallow: strutto, in Italian, the first one, and sego the second one. I didn't know the meaning of sego or tallow before this experience. It also turns out tallow is used for cooking, however more for frying than for making pies. The reasons I found about this are contradictory: some people claim tallow has a stronger, beefy taste, than lard, whereas other people claim tallow doesn't taste like much, and therefore it just adds fat but no good flavor to pies. So, this was interesting to begin with: who was right? Matt started the rendering process right away. This time he tried to follow some more detailed recipes that we found online, such as this, on a new blog I found I really like (Homesick Texan).
He cut the beef fat into pieces and cooked them with water, similarly to what he did previously with pig fat:
However, this time the cooking went on much longer, with the goal of having all the pieces of fat sinking at the bottom of the liquid, and all the water evaporating. This way, a lot more fat is extracted from the meat, and the remaining pieces are cracklings, supposedly quite good to eat. The problem of this longer process was that the initially innocent looking pieces of fat were transformed into a bomb on our stove. They started exploding, making really loud noises, and most dangerously, jumping out of the pot and going everywhere in the kitchen! Here you can see them in this angry stage:
Matt was supposed to keep stirring them, which caused him a few burns before at some point he decided he had had enough. The smell was terrible, and even though he tried to clean up, we still had pieces of fat on the floor the day after. However, in the end, he did obtain a remarkably large amount of tallow, of which you can see a tablespoon here:
It's not as white as lard. Also, Matt noticed that tallow solidified much faster than lard. In fact, as we learned later, tallow has a much higher percentage of saturated fats than lard. Therefore, while lard is actually better than butter in terms of healthy fat content, tallow isn't. Finally, Matt did try to make a pie crust with it the day after, but the smell was really beefy! So, it could be ok for a savory pie, but our experience so far seems to confirm the stronger-than-lard- smell theory. It may be related to how one renders it -- most likely, the longer you cook it, the more beefy the taste will be.

Anyway, you won't believe me, but it was a fun experience. Possibly, not to be repeated any time soon, but worth a shot. Especially with pig fat, instead of beef fat, if you want to have the best pie crusts ever, and liberate yourself from the low-fat trend of our society!

Torta di fragole e rabarbaro

Pies have never been my favorite dessert, mainly because I never really liked the crust. In fact, I know quite a few Americans who eat the filling and not the crust.. which of course, makes you wonder why they don't just bake the filling in a pan (and yes, I know somebody wisely does that :) ). However, Matt thought that the reason I never liked pie crusts is that I never had a really good one. Traditionally, pies crusts are made with lard, and the flavor that is given by lard is impossible to imitate with butter or shortening. So, we had the perfect reason to try making a good lard-crust pie: prepare a strawberry-rhubarb pie using the freshest ingredients in season, and use the recipe for the Fresh Produce of the Month event centered on rhubarb.

Recently we experimented a few times with lard, mostly to fry our homemade tacos in it. When I told people I had a few things cooked with lard, I got two possible reactions: disgust, or appreciation and nostalgic memories from childhood. My mom's reaction was the latter, and she told me about these fantastic 'bugie' that her grandma used to make for Carnival, by frying the dough in lard instead of oil, and how much more airy and fluffy they were compared to anything you can find nowadays. So, this will be the subject of another post, when I will try to repeat the bugie that I made some years ago, using lard instead of oil for frying.

Here comes the moment for the recipe of..

La vera torta di fragole e rabarbaro/ The real strawberry-rhubarb pie
As you can easily imagine, the most important part to get right for this authentic pie is the crust. To make this small cuty pie, you have to use 1 cup flour and 1/3 cup of lard, no less than that! The secret is in cutting the lard into the flour: use two knives and literally cut the lard while mixing it into the flour. Add also a pinch of salt. Once it's all in, add ~1 tbsp water, just enough to make it stick together: the smaller the better. Also, work the dough with your hands as little as possible, just to make a ball with the dough in the end. Divide the dough in two parts, one a little larger than the other, and roll down in two thin disks. The larger disk will be the base of the pie. Place that in your pan. Add the filling, prepared by simply cutting 2 stalks of rhubarb, 8 large strawberries, and letting them sit in a bowl with a little bit of lemon juice and sugar to taste.
Cover with the second disk of dough, and punch holes through it. A "Pi" decoration is optional, but particularly fashionable. :) Bake at 450F for ~45 minutes. Let it cool down before cutting the slices.. And enjoy!
The lard does give a different taste to the dough. It took me two slices before I got used to it, but once you have trained your taste buds not to expect the flavor of butter, it's very addictive :)

If you still haven't done so, please send me your recipes centered on rhubarb for this month's Fresh Produce of The Month event! The deadline is May 29th.

Torta di fragole e mandorle

For the first time in a while, I'll be able to participate to a blog event that's not the one that I started myself (which I would feel too bad not to take part to :) ). This is an indication of the fact that I still don't feel too pressed to start looking for funding for my new position at McGill, even though I've been told by a few people that I should start spending all my waking time doing that. So, since I'm sure shortly I'll be completely overwhelmed again, I want to take advantage of this blessed period and do something not completely work-related all weekends!

Therefore, my dear readers, here is my entry for Meeta's Monthly Mingle event, this month centered on spring cakes.
I made this cake specifically thinking about her, who requested a spongy, fruity cake for this month. And, I love both strawberries and almond, so.. here it is:

Torta di fragole e mandorle / Strawberry-almond cake
The recipe for this cake is almost entirely the same as you can find on the beautiful blog 'Fior di zucca'. This blog is mostly in Italian, but Fior translated almost all the recipes also in English. It's beautiful, and I invite everybody to check it out. The main difference between my version and Fior's is that she uses also cinnamon, whereas I didn't (I'm not too much of a fan of it), and hers is sweeter than mine (this was due to the fact that I completely ran out of sugar when I made the cake :) -- however, I thought the cake turned out really fine as for sweetness).

So, to make my slight modified version of the cake, grind 1 cup of almonds, and add to it 1 cup of flour, 1 tsp baking powder, 2/3 cup butter, 1/2 cup sugar, and 2 eggs. Mix all in a food processor. Spread half of the mixture on an 8" baking pan. Don't worry if the mixture is very dense and quite hard to spread. It will work well. Wash and cut in halves or quarts ~1 lb strawberries, and place on top of the batter in the pan. Then cover with the rest of the batter, trying not to leave uncovered strawberries. Bake for ~40 minutes at 350 F, until golden, and let cool down. Decorate with powdered sugar and strawberries.
This cake is very nice. Don't overcook it (40 minutes are enough, imo), so that it stays moist. This is the perfect season for strawberries, so if you want a strawberry cake that's a bit unusual, with almonds and a nice layering, try this one!