# Leaf lard



## 1st star

In my ingredients you need leaf lard. Can you get it in the UK? Or can you substitute it with something else.


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## justplainbill

1st star said:


> In my ingredients you need leaf lard. Can you get it in the UK? Or can you substitute it with something else.


Given the influx of Poles into the UK, you might have a better shot at getting it there than I have in the US.


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## 1st star

Can i just use normal lard from supermarkets??


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## justplainbill

Close but not quite the same as rendered leaf lard


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## GLC

Common supermarket lard (Armour, etc.) has undergone considerable processing, including hydrogenation. What you want is naturally rendered lard, preferably leaf lard, as it has the least porky taste. And it is apparently far more available in the UK than in the US. I found one local source (Dai Due in Austin), a sort of charcuterie operation that sells at a farmers market and allows pickup from the kitchen one day a week, but has no storefront shop. 

I must say it is excellent rendered leaf lard and made the kind of biscuits you can get no other way. If you're not concerned with subtle taste or with health concerns, common supermarket lard substitutes but is very far from the same product. I found one or two places offering online orders in the US. Quite expensive that way, of course. The alternative is to ask a butcher for leaf lard (which means just the unrendered fat) and render it yourself.


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## Gravy Queen

I'm in the UK and I have never heard of it.

What recipe is it for and I might be able to see if there is a substitute.


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## 1st star

It's for a dough pastry. For a flakey crisp pastry for tarts.


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## justplainbill

You might try substituting a mixture of 60% butter, 40% suet.


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## Mad Cook

Gravy Queen said:


> I'm in the UK and I have never heard of it.
> 
> What recipe is it for and I might be able to see if there is a substitute.


 
I have, but only in Jane Grigson's book about preserving meat and making pates and terrines. Leaf fat (also called "flead", "flair", or "flay" in parts of the UK) is the sheet of fat forming an interior covering to the loin and enveloping the kidneys. I used to use it in pate and terrine making but I have found it very hard to find in butchers in the north of England (home of such delicacies as black pudding and other arcane mixtures of pig products and offal) and I suspect that nowadays it's stripped off the carcass at the slaughter house and sent to the renderers and the butcher never sees it in his shop. 

It does make the best lard so if this is an old recipe it may have stated "leaf lard" to distinguish it from cheaper lard made from all sorts of bits and bobs of waste fat. Much in the same way that recipes used to refer to "best butter" to distinguish fro margarine or butter adulterated with other fats.

I wonder if you could use shredded suet in your pastry. I'm not very good at pastry (warm hands, cold heart as my Mother used to say) so I often use Delia Smith's recipe for suet patry. It doesn't make an elegant pastry but is nice and flaky for steak and kidney pies, fruit pies, etc.


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## Stock Pot

*Lard*

I did a lot of research on lard and I use it now in place of vegetable oil in just about everything when heat is involved. When you heat vegetable oil it fires off trans fats like popcorn. This does not happen with lard. There was a great article in The Wall Street Journal about the animal fats thing. It's really a "must read" article. Very well researched and thorough. How many recipes start with "heat a tablespoon of vegetable oil in a frying pan"? 
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303678404579533760760481486?mod=trending_now_1


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## Andy M.

Very interesting article, Stock Pot.  

It underscores my theory that you really can't believe anything.  That is, if you believe the WSJ article. But what if that article is wrong?  

Stay tuned.  The next amazing discovery about what we eat is right around the corner!


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## Dawgluver

Stock Pot said:


> I did a lot of research on lard and I use it now in place of vegetable oil in just about everything when heat is involved. When you heat vegetable oil it fires off trans fats like popcorn. This does not happen with lard. There was a great article in The Wall Street Journal about the animal fats thing. It's really a "must read" article. Very well researched and thorough. How many recipes start with "heat a tablespoon of vegetable oil in a frying pan"?
> 
> http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303678404579533760760481486?mod=trending_now_1




Excellent article, Stock Pot.  Thanks!


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