Pan-Fried Pork with Onions in Lard, Village Style
Pork fried with onions in rendered lard, despite being high in calories, is one of the best pan-fried meat dishes. It takes no special cooking skills and poses no difficulties. Meat with onions has always been popular, especially in villages, where pork is the main meat for cooking and onions grow in every vegetable garden.
It so happened that my grandmother in the village always raised pigs. And of course not for decoration, but for the meat. I read somewhere that in Germany, in October, they hold the Schlachtfest, the so-called “slaughter festival,” mostly for pigs. It's a special event, and the whole family then spends a long time turning the pork into homemade sausages, pâtés, wieners and so on.
Freshly slaughtered pork is fairly tricky to cook. But the simplest dish you can make is pork with onions. As a rule, pork and onion recipes are very simple. Pieces of pork are fried in rendered pork fat, then onions are fried until golden. Pan-fried pork turns out very tasty and even a little sweet, thanks to the caramelized sugars in the onion. Chinese sweet pork is sometimes made without any added sugar at all, relying only on sweet onions.
Frying pork with onions in a pan couldn't be easier. Frying is generally defined as cooking food with hot fat carrying heat from the source to the food. Frying usually forms a crust on the food that keeps its moisture from escaping.
Pork can be fried, boiled, stewed or roasted. It's hard to imagine Ukrainian borscht without pork, and ground meat patties are tastiest made from pork too. Homemade buzhenina, a big piece of roasted pork leg, is an exceptionally tasty festive dish. And plain fried pork with onions is wonderfully tasty meat, especially with very fresh bread. Getting ahead of myself: fry the meat with onions over medium heat, without covering the pan.
Ingredients
2 servings
- Pork 400 g
- Onions 3
- Salo (pork fatback) 50 g
- Salt, ground black pepper, coriander to taste
Step-by-step recipe
- For frying, it's better to use pork fat rather than vegetable oil or butter. Don't count on the pork having enough fat on its own. As a rule, pork doesn't render any fat unless it has fairly large, visible bits of fat on it. You can use lard, pork fat rendered in advance, or take a piece of back fat, chop it finely and render the fat in the pan. By the way, pork cracklings with bread are a first-class dish in their own right.
- So, cut the piece of salo into very thin slices of any size. What matters is that the fat renders out, and the thinner the slices, the better that works. Render the pork fat in a well-heated frying pan. The cracklings must not burn under any circumstances. Take the cracklings out of the hot fat right away and eat them immediately with bread. Highly recommended!
- You can use meat from any part of the pig, but shoulder or leg works best: there's plenty of meat and a little fat along the edge. Cut the meat into walnut-sized pieces or slightly larger. Put the pieces into the pork fat and fry over medium heat, stirring constantly.
- When it comes to onions, more is better. It's best when the fried meat in the pan equals the fried onions in volume. Peel the onions and cut them lengthwise into thick strips.
- As soon as the pork starts to brown, salt it lightly, season with freshly ground fragrant black pepper and be sure to add ground coriander. Coriander goes beautifully with fried meat, improving the flavor and aroma of the dish.
- Add the sliced onions to the meat in the pan. Keep frying the pork with the onions, stirring constantly with a wooden spatula. Do it carefully, since splatters of hot fat can cause burns.
- Fry the meat until the onions turn a lovely deep golden color. Surprisingly, well-fried onions take on a refined, slightly sweet taste. I read somewhere that the sharper the onion, the more sugars it contains, so fried onions end up very sweet.
- The dish is ready when the fried onions are. The size of the meat pieces guarantees the pork cooks through. Total cooking time is about half an hour, which is quite enough from a safety point of view (you know what I mean?).
- The finished meat is exceptionally tasty with fresh dark rye bread, ideally still warm. Whether you need a side dish is up to you. Honestly, I wouldn't even call this a main course; it's more of a hot appetizer.
- Add a few fresh herbs to the plate, as well as some spicy adjika or any other hot sauce you like.
| Serves: | 2 servings |
| Calories: | 260 |
| Prep: | 15 mins |
| Cook: | 30 mins |
| Total: | 45 mins |
| Category: | Main Dishes |
| Cuisine: | European |
| Rating: |
⭐
⭐
⭐
⭐
⭐
4.7
(8)
|