Lard

[Gruney]

I've been hearing quite a bit recently, that lard is not the demon it was once thought to be, and in fact it's rather a good fat to use use for pan frying. Any views please?

[Pepper Pig]

On the rare occasion that I have a fry up breakfast I always use lard. As did my dad before me. He was king of the fry-ups. It makes wonderful fried bread.

[Suffs]

I agree … it’s also great for Yorkshire puddings and roast potatoes if you have no dripping.

[Lusciouslush]

Another fan here (all of the above)
except........

It makes wonderful fried bread.

It certainly does - but you have to have a goodly amount of bacon fat in there too.....

[Gruney]

Thanks all - it's good to know it can be used for pan frying without the health fears I'd heard about.

[Earthmaiden]

Animal fat doesn't seem to be the horror once thought.

We always used it for frying and as half shortcrust pastry fat (the other half being butter or marg). I agree that it makes lovely fried bread.

Can anyone tell me why people gasp at the mention of a slice of fried bread but are happy to pile their plates with the frozen type of hash brown? You can make nice fried bread by spreading the bread with the fat of your choice (rather than immersing it) which is no worse than a slice of bread and butter or dripping.

[Badger's Mate]

Somebody at a Christmas do once berated me for eating chicken skin. At the time they were tucking into a mince pie with cream on it. People who would trim the fat from a slice of ham ‘for health reasons’ would happily eat corned beef, cheese or puds.

The consensus still seems to be that excessive consumption of fat, particularly saturated fat, is to be avoided. Sugar seems to be the more fashionable villain but surely it’s possible to have more than one villain.

[WWordsworth]

To J's delight, I eat neither chicken skin or ham fat.
Not for health reasons, I just don't enjoy them..... But he does

[Stokey Sue]

I think there are two problems with fried bread - first, if you are making it with floppy sliced white bread it needs to be a bit stale I think to cook evenly and go crisp; second as I have mentioned before my experience is that it's often quite nasty in hotels and cafés - I think they use the soft sliced bread and deep fry, sometimes in oil that isn't pristine - hash browns possibly survive the deep fryer a little better and also can be kept warm for a while

I think the nutrition focus has shifted a bit, current dietary guidelines are that no more than 35% of daily calories should come from fats and oils; no more than 11% of daily calorie intake should be saturated fat; none of it should be trans fat. Source (animal/vegetable) not specified, just the type. That is all the fat you eat, as BM says - pastry, biscuits, ice cream as well as savoury foods.

On average, between 35-40% of the fat in lard in is saturated so it's not the heavy artery blast it was once painted as, but you don't want too much

[aero280]

My mother and grandmother always briefly dipped bread in water before pan-frying it. It was delicious.

Another tasty addition to a fried breakfast was pan fried porridge. It would have been yesterday's poridge and fairly solid, to start with...

[oat]

How would you cook fried bread to make it so crispy that it shatters when you try to cut it?
I'm asking as we were served it one morning in a hotel and J loved it.

[Earthmaiden]

I think they deep fry it for catering. Ours was like that sometimes at boarding school.

[Suffs]

I loathe those awful frozen hash browns. Revolting things. If a hotel or wherever can’t give me fried cold new potatoes, or bubble and squeak or similar with my breakfast I’ll go without. However I will not go without fried bread or black pudding.

[aero280]

The full crispy fried bread that cracks, is likely baked like french toast after being soaked in fat. The "wet" method my family used gave a soft centre and a crisp outside. It had to be flash fried in a very hot pan. And likely to have been stale(ish) bread before it damped down...