On Wed, 25 May 2011 17:15:40 +0100, John Williamson
wrote:

Arfa Daily wrote:


I'd love to, but I doubt these days that we would sell many ... ! When I
was a kid, my local chip shop fried in lard, and his fryers were heated
by live coke fires. He had a pile of coke in the corner of the shop,
with a little hand shovel. Imagine the Elf n Safety and Environmental
Health issues that that would throw up these days ! But the thing is,
his chips were the best you have ever tasted. I think there are two
reasons for this. First, the nice even heat provided by the coke beds,
and secondly, the fact that you can get lard a lot hotter than vegetable
oil. This is noticeable when you cook pancake batter. No matter how much
you pre-heat vegetable oil in your pan, the resulting pancakes always
have a slight rubbery 'sogginess' to them. OTOH, if you heat lard until
the pan is smoking, and then pour your batter in, the resulting pancake
is light, mottled golden, and slightly crispy and lacy around its edges.
Yorkshire puddings cook better in lard, also.

You could sell 'em to me! I used to go out of my way when I lived in
Hounslow to visit the chippy in Isleworth who still fried his chips in
dripping. Then I went down the road to the other chippy for the fish,
'cos the guy who ran the dripping chippy couldn't fry fish to save his life.

There is a chippy in the Black Country Museum which still uses dripping,
but I've not been there for a while, and forget whether they still use
the coke range.

As for pancakes, you are *so* right.... It's a shame you can't use
non-stick pans for them due to the high temperature needed.

I use a cast-iron skillet for my pancakes. It makes perfect pancakes
every time and I never have any problem with sticking. Lard of course.

Nick