#cracklings

You know when you buy pork from the grocery store, and it's a cheaper cut with a bunch of fat?

This can be used to make cracklings/scratchings (a tasty snack) and rendered to make cooking fat for frying eggs and baking!

Of course you can leave the fat on while you cook the meat, but sometimes there's a big fat cap that you might want to cut off. You can freeze the fat in a bag until you've got about half a cup or more.

Cut it off the meat (it's totally fine if there's meat attatched still), or thaw it in the fridge if it's frozen.

Render the fat in a pan with a lid on low heat.

Stir it occasionally to stop it from sticking.

Once it's browned and a lot of the fat has melted, watch it more closely.

At a golden brown stage, pour off the fat (carefully) into a heat proof container (more on this at the end).

Put the crackling back on the heat for a few minutes and then pour them out into a bowl with some paper towel, sprinkle some salt immediatly so that it sticks! Enjoy as a snack (they'll be hot so be careful!)

While the fat is still liquid, place a coffee filter in a funnel and pour it into a jar (it could take up to 20 minutes to filter through).

Store it in your fridge and use it as a cooking oil or baking lard!

Also me: Shame to waste these trimmings, I'm gonna render them down.

Also me: mmm cracklings nom nom nom

Jar of rendered pork fat. Not all of it from today; about half is saved bacon dripping.