My mum is no stranger to pork fat. She loves a good pork belly, either golden and crispy fat or jiggly and gelatinous in a soy braised pork dish.
My mum's love of pork fat has been passed down to me. I remember growing up with mum rendering pork fat which was then used in a variety of Chinese desserts – yes, sweet and not savoury recipes – unreal, right?
Both Asian and European chefs here in Australia tell me how pork fat, aka , was used in many of their grandparents' recipes to simply cut costs when times were tough. But it was more sustainable because it meant more of the animal was used.
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However, these days people are cautious about using too much lard because of the around saturated fats. This is illustrated through Taiwan's unofficial national sweet: the pineapple cake. When mum's friends return to Australia from trips to Taiwan, they give us food souvenirs straight to our door (a great culture, I know). This comes with a proud boast: "No lard was used in this cake so you can eat it without guilt".
As much as I like "wholesome" desserts, I feel some disappointment when given lard-free Taiwanese desserts because lard makes the pastry flakier and the flavour more intense - it tastes so good.
For Singaporean-born chef, lard made regular appearances at family gatherings, especially during special festivals like the Spring Festival where desserts were always served. “Every Chinese New Year or family get-togethers, lard was used in dessert and I remember everything from biscuits to mochi-like desserts, tang yuan having lard as a key ingredient,” says the young sous chef working at Melbourne's Society Restaurant.
“It added that fatty and savoury flavour needed in many traditional Singaporean desserts like orh nee (Teochew taro yam paste) as my mum's side is Teochew and also for flakier walnut cookies. Lard works because it adds that oily and “short” factor, which is a key to making delicately crumbly biscuits or cookies. It also balances the sugar in most desserts. If we didn’t have lard, my mum would substitute shallot oil for a deliciously fragrant onion-y, yet fatty flavour.”
Lard offers a beautiful earthy richness which is great in desserts if used in the right quantities.
But Asia is not the only place where people use lard. In the US, lard is used to make pie. When I worked as a physical chemist in the southern states, I relished pie. Pumpkin, banana crème and the moreish pecan pie were a part of my weekly repertoire. I began making pie crusts at home but failed miserably. Then my Kansas friend, Briana, told me that shortening or lard flaky, delicate crusts.
Italy is another country where some desserts come with a strong dose of lard. For example, pasticciotti, torcetti and sfogliatelle are traditionally made with lard to achieve either flakier textures or layers.
Make the pastry flaky with lard. Source: Brett Stevens
With tradition, we can understand the history of Italy and how it has shaped [our] cooking.
Carmela D'Amore, a retired Sicilian chef who now runs in Australia, thinks of cannoli when I ask her about the Italian desserts made with lard which she enjoyed as a child.
"The cannolo is over 1,000 years old but today we can substitute it with vegetable oil," says D'Amore. "However, in my own opinion, lard is better, as we are making a very ancient recipe.
"For such recipes, keeping the tradition alive by making it authentic and with the same traditional ingredients, our ancestors used allows us to savour the recipe. With tradition, we can understand the history of Italy and how it has shaped [our] cooking."
Indeed, the so-called King Cannolo relies on lard to give it the crunch for which it's renowned. "To make an authentic cannolo, you really must have lard in the mixture, as well as fry it in lard to make it truly authentic," she says.
This is how to make cannoli pastry with the perfect texture. Source: China Squirrel
"In the Italian tradition, there are honestly thousands of regional desserts made with lard (we call it strutto or sugna)," Dazzan says. "The strutto can be a substitute for butter and can be used in shortbread, filo pastry biscuits because it gives a truly unique fragrance."
He says he enjoys a lard-based Italian dessert called colac. "It is an incredible biscuit that is the size of a doughnut and has been considered a traditional gastronomic food of the Friuli Venezia Giulia (the region where I am from) for centuries," he says.
Although, he says households have been making it less, recently, because it needs lard. "Obviously, every area has their own take on the recipe, but lard is the single ingredient that you need to make it truly authentic."
Kyle Nicol of wine bar in Melbourne, enjoys using lard in his recipes too. "Lard seems to be a very underused product as our mass-produced dairy industries have made it so cheap to buy butter," Nicol says. "But lard offers a beautiful earthy richness which is great in desserts if used in the right quantities because it can handle very high temperatures without burning."
There is a whole lot of unctuous richness with the addition of the lard.
He loves to make a Portuguese-style flan with lard. It's made with a mixture of sugar, port wine, lemon zest, cinnamon and a few tablespoons of lard.
"These ingredients are then reduced into a syrup and whisked into egg yolks before being steam-baked just like a crème caramel. There is a whole lot of unctuous richness with the addition of the lard."
So, the next time you find yourself removing the fat off your pork belly, ask yourself – what dessert can I make with this under-appreciated, but oh-so-wonderful lard?
