How to treat bacon?

I'll introduce a simple method of curing bacon to my friends who like bacon. I believe you will learn it as soon as you learn it. The specific method is:

Step 1: Prepare the materials. Fresh meat from any part of the pig can be used to make bacon. What kind of meat to choose mainly depends on your preference. Generally speaking, it is appropriate to choose pork belly with skin, so that the bacon made is fat and thin, thin but not firewood, fat but not greasy. When I was a child, I liked to eat pure fat because I had no oil in my stomach. I thought only fat bacon was fragrant. At present, cured bacon generally chooses semi-fat and semi-thin meat materials. After buying fresh meat, cut it into strips 3 to 5 cm wide, neither too wide nor too narrow. If it is too wide and salty, it will easily lead to salty meat. Don't wash the meat with water after cutting it. If you feel dirty, scrape the outer layer of the meat with a knife.

Step 2: Pickling. It is best to buy some coarse natural sea salt in the market for curing bacon. This kind of salt is rich in minerals, with large particles, and the salted meat is particularly fragrant. If not, we can cook with salt. The dosage of salt is generally about 10 kg, and the dosage of salt is about 8 Liang to 1 kg. In order to spread salt evenly on the meat, you'd better rub it with a little force. Then put it into a pottery or ceramic container, then cover it and marinate for 7 days. If you are diligent enough, you can turn the jar once in the middle and swap the positions of the upper and lower meat. Shang Ruo doesn't have containers such as pottery and porcelain at home, so it's ok to use enamel cans, but plastic containers are not allowed.

Step 3: air drying. After 7 days, take out the meat, pierce the skin at one end of the meat with a knife tip, tie it tightly with hemp rope, hang the meat in a sunny and ventilated place, and fully dry it for 3 to 5 days. The climate in the north is dry and sunny, and it can be basked for 3 days. The air in the south is humid and can be aired for a day or two. In short, dry the water in the meat. At this point, the whole pickling task is completed, as simple as that!

Step 4: Store. Bacon has strong antiseptic ability and can be preserved for a long time, usually 3 months. You can usually hang bacon in a cool and ventilated place at home. If urban families feel unsightly, they will hang dried bacon in a cool and ventilated place for three or four days, and then put it in containers such as ceramics or ordinary cartons. The air in the south is humid. In order to prevent the bacon from moldy oysters, they will be taken out and hung on the balcony for a while. The climate in the north is dry. In order to prevent the cured meat from being completely dehydrated and turned into "cured meat stone", it can be packed in plastic bags. I don't approve of putting bacon in the refrigerator, because it will seriously affect the flavor of bacon.

If you want to preserve bacon such as preserved fish, duck and chicken, the method is the same as preserved bacon. For preserved fish, you can choose carp, herring and other fish with thicker meat. The bigger the fish, the better. Cut the fish open to remove the internal organs, and then sprinkle salt evenly. When drying, cross the fish belly with a stick. Cured duck and chicken can do this.

In particular, as mentioned at the beginning of this article, now is the best time to preserve bacon. Bacon, bacon, as the name implies, requires curing in the twelfth lunar month, that is, it must be processed during the period from "Xiaoxue" to "beginning of spring", not for a day! If beginning of spring is on the 27th day of the twelfth lunar month, and you don't marinate the meat until the 28th day of the twelfth lunar month, then the processed meat is just ordinary bacon flavor, so it doesn't have the smell of bacon. The twenty-four "solar terms" discovered by our ancestors are so magical! Bacon is cured in winter because the temperature is low in winter and bacteria are not easy to reproduce. After winter, spring is the best time for bacteria to multiply. With the change of microbial environment, the taste of meat is different. As for why there was no bacon one day after beginning of spring, no one can say for sure. This is the secret of nature, which is also the reason why we pickled bacon without seasoning. Because the ambient temperature has an influence on the bacon taste of pickled products, families with heating in the north should put the containers for curing bacon on the balcony or kitchen without heating.

Generally speaking, the smell of bacon will come out after curing and drying for one month. The best time to eat bacon is from the fifteenth day of the first month to before the Dragon Boat Festival, when bacon tastes the most fragrant. Preserved bacon in the natural environment may be spicy after the Dragon Boat Festival, which not only deteriorates the taste, but also may contain some toxins.

The cooking method of bacon is very simple. The main methods are steaming, frying and clay pot rice.

Steaming is to wash the bacon with warm water, cut it into large pieces with uniform thickness, put it on a plate, and steam it with high fire for 20 minutes. The lean meat inside, the translucent fat but not greasy fat, and even the skin are full of fragrance, which makes people want to stop. You can also put lobster sauce, dried bean curd and vermicelli under the meat and steam it. These summer mats are delicious, too.

Stir-frying is to wash the bacon with warm water, cut it into large pieces with uniform thickness, and stir-fry it with seasonal vegetables such as garlic sprouts, green peppers and peas, which is a delicious bacon dish. If there is too much fat, you can extract the fat first, which can not only reduce the greasy feeling, but also increase the waxy taste of the side dishes. Some places in the south also have the cooking practice of fried rice cakes with bacon.

Clay pot rice is the same as washing bacon products with warm water and cutting them into large pieces with uniform thickness. When steaming rice, add bacon, duck, etc. The steamed gravy and rice are attractive. Sometimes when I come home late from work, I cut a few large pieces of bacon and put it in the rice cooker, then stir-fry vegetarian dishes and cook a clear soup. A vegetarian lunch will be ready soon, which is very convenient.

If bacon is found salty, there is a solution. That is, the bacon is cut into large pieces with uniform thickness, soaked in light salt water for about an hour, and some salt is precipitated before cooking. If the bacon tastes a little spicy after being kept for a long time, cut it into large pieces and cook it in water with high fire, then take it out and cut it into pieces to eat, so as to remove most of the spicy taste.

There are many curing methods of bacon, and the cured bacon processed all over the country has its own flavor due to the differences in ingredients and processing technology, climate, geography and other factors. In fact, when some people in our family are curing bacon, the third step is not drying, but smoking, which is another flavor. The reason why it has not been introduced is that people in the city have no conditions to do it, the technology is difficult to master, and the smoky smell is not liked by many people. What I have introduced to you above is one of the curing methods of bacon in our hometown, and it is also the easiest to learn. Because no seasoning is added, the most natural waxy taste is maintained. I wonder if it's to your taste?

Need a friendly reminder that some bacon on the market is red and brightly colored, which is artificially added, so you should buy it carefully. Good quality bacon should be golden yellow and shiny, with ruddy lean meat and yellowish fat. Steamed or fried bacon has the same appearance, transparent and shiny, with reddish yellow. The taste is mellow, fat but not greasy, thin but not stuffed. It not only has unique taste and rich nutrition, but also has the effects of appetizing, dispelling cold and promoting digestion.

Of course, if you want to have good quality bacon, you must first have good quality fresh meat. If you think that the factory-raised pork sold in the market is not fragrant, many people in rural areas will kill the pigs for the New Year at this time and usually sell some. You can drive to the countryside with a few friends (in order to reduce costs) and find a butcher to buy pork fed by farmers themselves.