Chicarones

Ok, here is a real Las Cruces recipe for making what many of you call pork rinds or pork skins and we call chicarones (chee-cha-rone-es). Forty years there were enormous chicarones parties here as part of pork slaughtering on busy farms. The chicarones were cooked in enormous cauldrons, placed over open fires. Remove the skin from the body of the pig, leaving on some of the fat and even bits of meat. Cut this skin into pieces about 2" square. Also cut from the hog, 3 or four large hunks of fat. Render the fat in the hot cauldron. The lard should be hot. Put the pieces of pork skin into the cauldron and cook until the fat on the skins and the skins themselves are golden brown. These need to be drained on brown paper. They were served with home pickled jalapenos, cold beer and lime to add to the beer. Posted to recipelu-digest Volume 01 Number 633 by Eeyore <efalt@totacc.com> on Jan 29, 1998