Easiest Keto Snack of Crispy Pork Crackling Strips make simply the best ZERO carbs savoury snack.
Why buy cracklings, when you can make the real deal at home in 20 minutes? Infinitely better and 100% natural, home-made pork crackling is incomparable to anything packaged and store-bought. Keto or not, everyone who loves crackling will love Easiest Keto Snack of Crispy Pork Crackling Strips.
To be fair, this is hardly a recipe. It’s more of a cooking instruction. There is absolutely nothing to do, apart from cutting the pork rind into strips. No other prepping. No other ingredients except a generous sprinkle of salt. And the best thing is that you can collect the rendered fat (dripping), let it cool down and it will turn to delicious, home made lard.
My pork crackling story
For those who have never heard of crackling, it is the rind (skin) and fat (of a pig) baked to a crisp. I was never a fan of crackling in my pre-keto days.
My first experience of it was in a London pub. I thought it was sickly, fatty, and, frankly, quite nauseous. Never mind the black hairs sticking out in places… yuk!
My second experience of it was during a visit to my friend. He had been cooking a big slab of it in the oven for hours, and the whole house smelled greasy and vomit-inducing. The smell was just too much for me. It made me physically ill and I had no option but to make my apologies and leave (sorry J!).
Then keto came along, and little by little I learned to love fat in all its shapes, sizes and sources. Except crackling. I still couldn’t stomach the real thing. Although I could cope with packaged pork crackling snacks, as long as they were wafer thin and looked like potato crisps, in a bag. And not too ‘porky’ or greasy.
However… there is always a ‘however’ in my kitchen nowadays. Last December I ordered some pig cheeks from a newly discovered pasture farm nearby. When I collected them, they were ‘whole’. By ‘whole’ I mean it wasn’t just cheeks, but the entire jowls, bacon-like fat and rind included.
The farm lady, who handed them over, told me that the secret to good crackling was to cut it into strips and bake it at the highest oven temperature for 20 minutes. “Really?” I thought to myself, not at all convinced. Anyway, I went off to run my other errands and headed home afterwards.
How I Made the Easiest Keto Snack of Crispy Pork Crackling Strips
Back in my kitchen, I started cutting and portioning all the meats, ready for freezer storage. But, ever the frugal type, I couldn’t bring myself to just dispose of the rind once I sliced it away from the jowls. It looked beautifully clean and fresh. With just a few hairs that you’ll be glad to know I removed with a tweezer.
So I made one of my best impromptu decisions. I would cut the rind into strips and bake them as the lady had advised. But in my counter top halogen oven (h-oven), rather than in the traditional oven.
That way there would be no oily splatters everywhere, no hours of cleaning and no greasy smell hanging around the kitchen for days.
Ingenious indeed!
I placed a tray at the bottom of the h-oven to collect the rendered fat (dripping), then I stacked the low grill over that, with the rind strips sitting on top of the grill.
I sprinkled some fine Himalayan pink salt all over the strips and set the temperature to 250 C with full speed fan. And crossed my fingers.
The counter top halogen oven – a temporary oven replacement bought during a house move and never quite retired, had come to my aid yet again. And what a success it turned out to be!
My Easiest Keto Snack of Crispy Pork Crackling Strips were amazing. Surprisingly light. Crunchy, but not teeth-shattering hard. Tasty, but not overpoweringly pig-like. All the fat had rendered down and dripped into the bottom tray, so the strips were not greasy at all. They needed a lot more salt, but that’s it. Simply perfect!
And on top of all that, I ended up with a jar of beautiful organic lard, ready to cook with.
If you decide to try this, but don’t have an h-oven, you can use your ordinary oven instead. Just prepare a collection tray and a grill over which to place your rind strips. The secret is not to let the crackling swim in their own melted fat.
Two more things worth knowing. Ask your butcher for the rind: plenty of people don’t want it, so there is often some going spare. And pat the skin completely dry with kitchen paper before it goes in, because moisture is the enemy of crunch. If you like your crackling salty, as I do, add a little extra salt the moment the strips come out, while they are still hot, so it sticks.
Here is are the recipe directions for the Easiest Keto Snack of Crispy Pork Crackling Strips.
Enjoy!
Easiest Keto Snack of Crispy Pork Crackling Strips
Ingredients
- 200 g pork rind with 2-3mm attached fat
- fine Himalayan pink salt
(Ingredients in green link to the products I use. More on keto ingredients.)
Instructions
- Clean rind and pluck any remaining hairs using tweezers.
- Cut rind into 1.5cm strips using kitchen scissors or a knife.
- Place on lower rack in halogen oven, rind side up.
- Sprinkle some salt and bake at 250 °C full fan speed, for 20 minutes.
- Finally, transfer strips to a serving plate and sprinkle a generous amount of salt all over.
Notes
Nutrition
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