LARD

Once every few months or so, my flat fills up with the heavenly aroma of pork fat simmering away on top of the stove, releasing its lovely golden liquid, and a couple of hours later my fridge gets two new jars of freshly rendered creamy, snowy lard. I see you recoiling in horror already, trying to wash off all dirty thoughts and images of that four-letter white grease.

I refuse to believe that something my incredibly fit mother has been cooking with for years is bad for me. Lard’s always been the granny fat of choice in Europe, South America, the Philippines and, of course, China. Even the Italians and Spanish, better known for olive oils, have a deep appreciation of this fat in their delicious charcuterie. Really, if you had pigs, you would have had lard, and you had food cooked in lard. Before the low-fat health fads of the 70s, people ate it without guilt. Today, research has shown that the animal fats some of my friends consciously try to peel or dab off are in fact healthy, and actually healthier than that precious bottle of extra virgin olive oil when you are cooking at high temperatures.

Facts and figures aside, you only have to listen to your heart to give that low-fat yoghurt a toss. Healthy food is food that nourishes not only the body, but the soul, and soul food has got to taste good. Is there any other reason why my mum’s home-style cabbage tastes so fabulous (and no, there is no MSG in it); why the meltingly soft layer of fat in slow-roasted pork belly is so irresistible; and why the best bak chor mee hawkers still finish their dishes with a flourish of golden crackling?

There are many recipes in this book that make use of very simple flavours, with lard being the one ingredient that gives the dishes their oomph. You can of course always replace it with groundnut oil or some other choice of fat if you can’t take lard, but if you’re open to it, what follows is a recipe for rendering your own good, old-fashioned lard. The only thing I would caution is to make sure you render it from fat that comes from a happy, healthy pig. A factory-farmed pig cramped in a cage and pumped with antibiotics isn’t going to give you the same nutrition benefits and flavour.