LOMO EN MANTECA

Hi friends, lomo en manteca is a bit difficult to translate, you may have tasted it, in the south of Spain in a restaurant, specially those situated on the old mountain roads, we have so many of in Andalucia, specally around Malaga and Granada.
This dish is an ancient way to conserve the meat, when the Matanza (slaughter) was celebrated, the hams salted and hung for drying, the chorizos and morcillas manufactured, some was for drying and some was fried in oil or in manteca as well , stored in ceramic containers called orzas (daggerboard is the translation I can find, but as I never heard it before,  don´t know if it´s right), as well the name can be Lomo en Orza.
The "orzas" has a wide bottom but with a narrower  throat, keeps cool and was the best container to conserve, and the manteca made it airthight inside.

The ingredients you need :
2 kg of  lomo de cerdo.               (pork loin)
800 gr. of manteca de cerdo.      (lard)
Sal.                                             ( salt)
Agua.                                        (water)

Clean the meat so there is no grease left, cut as you see on the photos, aboat 4 cm thick slices, toss all with salt, and put in a big wide skillet, together with the lard and fill with water until you cover the meat,. Bring to boil, and let boil until the water has evaporated, you can se the bubbles are getting tinier and it start frying. Take the meat out of the skillet, and strain the liquid, clean the skillet and put both manteca and meat back, and let fry until light golden.

When it´s ready it  looks like this.

This recipe is from a blogger friend Lidia de la O, who write the blog, Atrapada en mi cocina,  you can see here, all of her delicious recipes and wonderful photos.

 I have done it myself a lot of times before, but always frying the meat, not letting it boil with water.
This process makes the meat more tender, and from now on I'm going to use this recipe.
You can do as I, put it in a container, be careful to cover all the meat wth the lard and keep in the fridge, or put in sterilized glass containers as Lidia do, and it rests for many weeks.

Lomo en Manteca con Salaillas, small breads.

If you don't feel like making it yourself, but would like to try, in the Malaga aerea, you order a "plato del monte" , some places it can be called "lomo en orza" in Antequera it's called " pelona", but normally it  is       " lomo en manteca".On the bottom of the skillet there will be some tiny meat bits and together with a litlle lard this is called  zurrapa, and used on toast for breakfast.

In well assorted supermarkets  as El Corte Ingles, Hipercor and Carrefour you can also find it tinned and ready to enjoy.
You can use it as a full meal with chips,( lots of calories) or a salad, I love the roasted pepper salat, "Ensalada de Pimentos Asados" or like you see on the photo as a tapa.

Tomorrow I will do the roasted pepper salad, as well as the salallias, small breads, typical from Granada, with a little Olive oil and sea salt on. Before the week-end I promise both recipes, and you can do a nice Spanish meal ahead, and just relax with a glass of wine on Saturday. (Spansh of course)
Have a good week, and please come back

.Have a look at my Spanish blog here

Love
Hilde