Pork Rind Crackling

Cracklings or deep-fried lard

Some people swear by deep-fried lard cubes. I'd seen my housemate using it when stir-frying instant noodles. Instant noodles - the mee goreng variety, deep-fried lard cubes, lots of crunchy beansprouts and some soy sauce. That's one of her favourite ways of eating instant mee goreng. Crunchy deep-fried lard cubes is also an essential ingredient in Stir-fried Hokkien Mee. Other uses, according to Mom, would be to pound them up and then mix them into Hae Bee Hiam, a spicy dried prawn sambal.

At the market this morning, Mom bought ...

Pig fat

This amount sells for RM3.00

The fat was for Mom to make meatballs, actually. She wanted to use up some lean pork that she had stored in the freezer. But lean meat would only make meatballs that were dry and hard. In order to make tastier and juicier meatballs, Mom minced a bit of fat and added them into the ground lean pork mixture.

In the end, there was so much fat left, and Mom was not one to waste anything. So she decided to render the fat into lard. Mom cut the fat into little dices.

 Dices of pig fat

Then she poured them into a hot wok. Before long, lard crept out from the dices of pork fat, leaving the cracklings.

Pour the diced fat into a heated wok


Rendering the fat

She stirred till the cracklings turned a shade of golden brown and drained them away from the melted lard. I asked Mom what she wanted to do with the cracklings. Most probably, she would throw them away. The melted lard, however, Mom stored in a bottle and kept them in the fridge. Melted fat solidifies in the fridge, so it's somewhat like butter. Except that it's paler in colour. Mom would scoop out a teaspoon whenever she cooked kolo mee. It really makes a difference in the taste. That day, I asked Mom for a bit of melted lard to cook this :

Stir-fried vermicelli with cangkuk manis and anchovies
It was really yum ;))