November 18, 2004

• Hardee's is in talks with chef Ainsley 'Woz' McRhodes as we speak for a three-burger deal.
• The thought of deep fried lard makes me physically ill.
• Lard is good. If god didn't want to let us eat pigs, he wouldn't have put bacon in those neat little breakfast sandwiches from Micky-D's.
• splendid! splendid! i should mention that i had dinner at the Standard Hotel in Fitzroy (suburb of Melbourne) - bbq pork ribs, with bacon and beans - and the bacon and beans had not only bacon but large chunks of ham. three kinds of pig! hurrah! /not kosher
• mexican - maybe that was the point? On the other hand, I miss the old, guilt-free days when the Mexican cooks I knew used lard for sopa de arroz and and frijoles refritos. They've never tasted as good since everyone went to canola oil. Oh, and for the masa for tamales. I do miss at least a small amount of lard in my diet. As the Frugal Gourmet used to say, "Thank the piggie."
• Path, to get close to that smokey, real refried taste at home, either cook up some pintos, or open a can of plain cooked pinto beans, then take a couple of table spoons of lard and finely chop a slice of bacon and fry it in the lard (bacon fried in lard, can it get any better?). Then fry a finely chopped medium onion and a clove or two of garlic in the resultant pork grease and bacon bits. Once the onions are translucent, then add your beans and mash them into the whole greasy mess. Don't throw the bean liquor away as you might need it to thin out your refried beans. A little queso fresco on top and some homemade salsa and just about any anemic pseudo new age fake vegetable oil tortilla will taste great dipped into that mess.
• Oh, and I miss the Frugal Gourmet, even if he was a pervert.
• Ah, yes, Squid! When I was trying to be a good Anglo- married to-Mexican wife, I did the whole lard/bean thing, though my ex-husband, who is a Mexican national did it much better. And, for a change from queso, a goodly pour of whole milk can turn the whole mess into something with all the merits of both refritos and southern gravy, if you're using lard. The two are a deadly but unforgetable combination. I liked it best on good, crusty bread. And, I feel the same about the Frug.
• I used to go to a taco stand as a wee lad in Rosarito in Baja when it consisted of a pandaria, a frutaria, a general store and a bunch of curio shops and, yes, taco stands. The lady there would heat up your tortilla (casero, of course) and spread it with mayonaise before rolling it into a bean burrrito. Seems similar to the thing that your ex did with the leche in the beans. If we are going to share ex's, I was married to an Argentine gal. Lovely, smart, beautiful, sexy, but had a mean streak a kilometer long. Don't miss her, but I do miss Argentina. A shout out to my Argentino pals!
• Goddamn if a homemade flour tortilla toasted brown with homemade refried beans don't sound this side of heaven right now.
• man, some 'a dat would go down good, squidranch... CHILLI PARTY AT SQUIDDY'S PLACE, EVERYONE!
• Everybody, the refried bean pool is open. Dive right in.
• dammit you people, now I'm starving! *dives into refried bean pool*
• Hello Kitty. Wha's up?
• Oh Squid, how could you??? I just got my results from my cholesterol test. Not bad, but I'm sure a plate of that will put me waaaaay over the top. Ah, heck. Gimme some of those beans--and put 3/4 cup chedder cheese on top.
• margaritas on the left, ladies and gentlemen. the classic tequila sunrise in the middle, there, and finally... tequila slammers on the right - yes, that's right, easy access to the restrooms...
• OK, I'm in.
• ...if a homemade flour tortilla toasted brown...this side of heaven right now... Heh. Don't forget to stare st those toasted tortillas until you see the face of Monkeybashi. squidder. /Department of Worthless Tips
• Monkeyfilter: I liked it best on good, crusty bread. Monkeyfilter: yes, that's right, easy access to the restrooms... Monkeyfilter: Gimme some of those beans--and put 3/4 cup chedder cheese on top.
• you folks will understand this. leaving my favorite mexican joint a few weeks ago, I saw the owner's pickup bed entirely full of huge pans of enchiladas, burritos and all other wonderful things. lined up neatly, covered with foil, and still hot. my first impulse? to jump in.
• Not exactly south of the border style, but...
• Curse you all. You are making the vegetarian weaken. I have some very good pig friends.. curses
• The Power of Lard
• Nostril, they wouldn't be robot pigs, would they?
• pig is a vegetable. a highly intelligent, delicious and versatile vegetable. like a tomato. tomato and pig - alike in most every way.
• Skrik, very nice--I like it when you tickle my taglines. So, pig is a vegetable, eh? Well, I say, bring on the ranch dressing!
• Here ya go Nostril: exquisite vegetarian (not vegan) black beans and rice. Saute chopped onions and roasted green chilies in lots of good quality fruity olive oil. Add chili powder, cumin, fresh garlic and chopped tomatoes. After it all melts together, add cooked black beans. Let it simmer into loveliness. Grease a glass baking pan with olive oil, add cooked rice, preferably a fragrant variety like jasmine. Spread little bits of chopped chevre on top of the rice, then pour your lovely bean mixture over the whole thing. Bake about 20 minutes in a moderate oven. Serve with fresh cilantro and fresh lime juice. Jumpin' jeebus jalapeno it's really good.
• I just thought of this thread as but five minutes ago I was heating a pan of lovely, lovely lucious lard and will soon be dipping my tortillas into homemade refried beans. yum
• Mmmmm! Squidy! You do know how to talk to a hedonist!
• I forgot about this thread - I should have asked my question here. A week or so ago, I bought some lard - but it tasted like chicken fat. Why?
• Sorry I didn't check this thread back.. I'm copying that recipe out right now, shinything, thanks! All I need is the beans, & I could cook it right now. Mmmmm.
• Pork is the "other white meat." But I remember it having a deeper flavor. not smoky like bacon, but pork chop-ish. Did you decide that by tasting the slab of it, or was it from cooking with it?
• It smelled and tasted like chicken fat. I was making a pie, and I first noticed a smell like chicken soup or boiled chicken. I tasted a small bit, and it tasted like the fat off a boiled chicken would. I've tasted pork lard before, and it's odourless and flavourless to me. This was a brand I've never used before; I moved from Toronto, where I bought Tenderflake, to Connecticut. The store where I bought it does cater to Hispanic and Carribean cooking as well as North American.
• Actually, lard isn't really "flavorless," It tends to have a more subtle flavor when processed in large industrial quantities, but does have a specific flavor. Depending on the brand, you can get a "toastier" flavor which is what you might have been tasting, or your lard might have been sitting around for a bit and had developed an off flavor. Fat does oxidize just like most anything else and a chicken like flavor might have resulted. Actually, after slicing off a bit of lard for my beans last night, I tasted the lard on the knife and it had a distinctly buttery flavor. Go figure.
• And to add to my comment above, if you like the toastier flavor and all you have is the industrial blocks of lard, what I do is to add a single slice of bacon, chopped very fine to the lard as it cooks. You can get the real toastier stuff, with tiny bits of pig still in it, at many latino, or southern meat markets were the mighty pig is still revered.
• I should have taken it back to the store then, and gotten my money back, if it was off. I just thought I had encountered a cultural difference from Canada to the US, because this smelled right (it smelled and tasted like good chicken fat) but wasn't what I wanted (for a sweet pie crust).