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crackling

crackling

3 6.7
A small crispy piece of cooked pork fat eaten as a snack
  • noun
  • /ˈkræk.lɪŋ/
translation icon : chicharrón
  • She herself only picked at the sweet potato and left the grease-shimmering greens and the fat crackling bread untouched.
  • pork crackling
  • crisp crackling
  • skin cracklings

Put in mushy peas, mint sauce, chutney, maybe some crackling.

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Examples

  • "I offer you as much crackling as you wish to eat, young man." "You will do no such thing," countered the coachman.

    Fiction book (1992)
  • Ladle the melted fat into a cheesecloth-lined colander, separating the melted fat from the cracklings.

    Blog text (17)
  • We have always given the cracklings to the chickens a little at a time.

    Blog text (17)
  • The smell of the mountain was laced with the smells of pork crackling and cigar smoke.

    Fiction book (1995)
  • At this point, after about 1.5 to 2 hours, once the cracklings start to settle on the bottom of the crock, it's done!

    Blog text (17)
  • I do not let the granules of cracklings get dark at all, only tan.

    Blog text (17)
  • When the fat starts to melt, it will separate itself from the "cracklings" (crisp residue left after lard has been rendered).

    Blog text (17)
  • For a crunchy snack, I enjoy adding pork crackling to my salads.

  • The chef prepared a dish garnished with crackling made from duck skin.

  • She served the roasted vegetables with crispy crackling on top for added texture.

Synonyms

greaves
vscrackling
  • Archaic
3 9.9

Solid pieces left after melting animal fat used as food or animal feed

is a crispy browned food product used for human eating or cooking
cracklings
vscrackling
7.8

Crispy browned pieces of pork left after melting fat

is the same residue but used as the general singular food term

How Crispy

crackling
3 6.7
greaves
  • Archaic
3 9.9

Surface Forms

crackling singular
cracklings plural

Morphology

crackling = crackle (semi-transparent) = crack + le + ing

The form is built from 'crackle' + '-ing', but the food sense has specialized away from the literal noise meaning.

Etymology

Crackling comes from the sound crack meaning 'a short, sharp sound' and the ending -ling like in duckling that shows a small thing, so crackling is the small, crispy pieces that 'crack' when you eat them.