cooking adventures: lard

Just cause you diont like lard , dont make it a rule for others. If you made your fruit pie crusts with lard, youd be gettin raises by the week.

huh, just try to find real lard in some of these outposts...

Laughs, I don't mean to ignore you. Back in a minute.

But wait, I missed what I should respond to, that you don't like lard?

I figure lard varies, bellies, skins, leaf(s), re heaviness, what do I know, I'm just asking.
I don't know if I like it. I like it as an idea, partly - I don't think it's worse than butter, which I used to, re fat, but I'm pretty blank ignorant. I've spent a long time avoiding lard, and I'm scaling back on that complete yucko thing - but I don't know.

I'll look back..

So, you use hydrogenated vegetable shortening?

Well, I'm back at it, have been craving a decent tamale, of which I've only had one of in Abq - but I don't get around much here and haven't met any families who make tamales. I should ask my neighbor, if and when I see her - we're pals who give each other space but have helped each other. She was born here and loves the city.

I probably said this before, but one of my girlfriend group of yore's grandmother sold tamales in old Los Angeles in the early 1900's. In our years, she and her family made tamales at christmas time (and also had a good local L.A. source, wish I could remember the name of, it was somewhere around Culver Blvd.) if they wanted more for a big party etc. We as a group, now dispersed, were always going to get together for a tamale making day but never did. In our group, the peppers outnumbered the salts, so there was probably a bunch of family info in the group history, or maybe not. Anyway, interest, but hard to time it.

I've bought new corn husks (lots of opinion online re how to use) and bought some store provided masa that is, I think, your basic pre made tortilla masa in a kind of loaf package, aka, sans lard or spices. (Not the stuff in the flour section of the market, but the cold meat section). I render my own lard anyway now, which sits there, so I have enough.

I'm playing with the filling stuff today, maybe tomorrow. I expect disaster, but I'll learn. I've only made tamales once before, and I had too much masa (however I made it back then) and too little juicy (aka moist) interesting filling.

I skipped a day, more or less. The filling is done, the masa awaits my adding my crackling fat, and the husks are soaking overnight, now that they are trapped in a large pan of water filled to the top and clamped down with a plate and the lid.. they float and try to get out. Willful husks.

Will I feel like making tamales tomorrow? Sounds like a song. Apparently I have enough stuff for something like forty but I don't know if I have enough personal patience to do forty. I say forty since I will probably tear corn husks in the doing. Will probably have to crank up some tamale making music. Aside from forming the tamales, I only have one pot where I have a steamer top, and I'd guess it might take 5 or 6 at a time at most. Maybe I'll invent a new way to steam them in my dreams, as each time takes a while.

I hope I get better at this. There are a zillion recipes online, many authentic in different ways, and many, authentic or not, exploring vegan tamales, vegetarian, and veggie and dairy mixes, like mushrooms/spinach/cheese. Apparently some use butter in the masa (!). Some use ricotta in the masa. The list of recipes to look at is pretty interesting.

But, this is a lard thread. I'll see how I like whatever my masa tastes like.

geez - I cannot over run the early tags, as in, recipes. Use of lard is an interesting subject and I keep trying with new tags, but no go, the tag above is
FOOD.

My Dad used to tell me stories about people having lard sandwiches during the war, as there was nothing else.
He said that it was a way to 'get something between your belly and your backbone'.
When I was a kid, we had a massive chip pan (fries) in the kitchen, full of lard which used to go rock hard when it cooled down.
My two bruvs and I were always pretty much stuffed with lard infused chips, but were as skinny as rakes, and could run around playing football and kiss chase until the cows came home.

Nowt wrong wi' lard.

I've been watching the BBC series Italy Unpacked where an art critic and a chef go around Italy. At one point they tried some Italian smoked lard, thinly sliced on bread.
http://honest-food.net/wild-game/wild-pig-recipes/wild-boar-charcuterie/lardo-or-italian-cured-pork-fat/

gag me with a sammich.
JEEZUS H CHRIST

I cant even take schmaltz on a cracker

I must admit I didn't rush to the Deli once I heard of it.

I've heard of it a lot since I read food articles from many places, but I'm squeamish about lardo. Probably a remnant of my childhood distaste for food that wiggled: tapioca, cream cheese, custard, visible cooked egg white or yolks (had to be scrambled, well mixed) ..Somehow I exempted meringue on top of lemon pie and whipped cream. As an adult, I learned to hate raw uni (sea urchin) and raw oysters (helped by getting dastardly ill), and learned to like cream cheese and custard plus souffles. Anyway, it looks wiggly, from here. I might like it, who knows.

I'm here because I'm procrastinating about my hoped for steam pan of tamales, having a beer first. I got the filling made a few days ago (delicious, ground beef with prev caramelized onions and various spices) and the masa mostly made Friday, but lagged in getting the masa to be so fluffy as to float in cold water. The husks have had a long soak, hope not somehow too long, otherwise I'll be making tamale pie.

I ended up reading a big batch of recipes (bought the wrong packaged pre made
(wet) masa, made with corn, water, lime; added my rendered lard and baking powder once I figured that out, and broth a little at a time).

Am liking a Rick Bayless recipe and one that is very clear from a poster on Chow. If my tamales out terrible, it's not their fault. Next time I'll start with dry masa harina and then add the other stuff .

My mother in law makes the best homemade tamales and she uses lard. In CA you could find some pretty good tamales at a few of the authentic Mexican restaurants but not here in Florida.

I’m going to have to get that recipe from her, she says it’s a lot of work making tamales but I don’t mind that.

Yeah, I'm taking a break, making five at a time since my attention span flits around.

I'm gonna master this, but maybe not this batch. A lot of chefs start with the dry masa harina and add the required ingredients, lots of recipes out there for that, but living in New Mexico, even an ordinary grocery store has pre made masa. What I didn't know is that it's pre made for tortillas, not tamales, which need lard and baking soda (and whatever spices you want). I suppose a specifically mexican/new mexican market would have pre made masa that has lard.

Anyway, after a day of fiddling to get my masa to float on old water (since I'm not familiar with the right consistency and I couldn't find the right amount of broth for that situation of wrong masa), I ended up having it too wet, so have added some of the store pre made non-lardy masa to my concoction. We'll see.

jcboy, I'd enjoy seeing your mother's recipe if you don't mind sharing it, and fine if not, if you do mind.

I think I said somewhere earlier that I've only had one edible tamale in New Mexico - I think of most of them as wrapped pellets and that seems to be the style, even in the big mexican market here. I don't particularly like their tortillas either, another story. Apparently they are more like Texan tortillas, sorta fluffy, instead of like the ones in CA, and like the ones from Sonora, Mexico.

Ok, back to the kitchen.

I have good memories of Los Angeles environs tamales from, as you say, the authentic small storefront places.

Adds, if it's pre made with lard, that would probably be the fully hydrogenated kind, like that that comes in blue boxes. I'd rather render my own, it's healthier.