"Chinese New Year wax!" We will eat bacon during the Spring Festival. Bacon has a history of thousands of years in China. The earliest record is that when Zhang Lu was called "Emperor Hanning" more than 2000 years ago, Hanzhong people entertained him with fine bacon. The traditional habit of processing bacon is not only long-standing, but also very common. Bacon is a kind of bacon in China. After curing, drying, smoking and cold storage, the taste becomes more mellow and delicious.
Bacon is mainly popular in Sichuan, Hunan and Guangdong, and it is also produced in other parts of China. Common ones are sausage, bacon, preserved fish, preserved duck, preserved chicken, preserved pig scalp, preserved pig cross section, preserved pig hands, preserved duck feet, preserved duck liver and so on. Bacon is famous for its production in the twelfth lunar month. Because it is cold in the twelfth lunar month, it is a natural refrigerator for storing food. Bacon is now a necessary food for Chinese New Year, and more and more people like to eat bacon. Well-formed bacon is consistent in appearance, cooked and sliced, transparent and shiny, bright in color, yellow and red, mellow in taste, fat but not greasy, thin but not stuffed, not only unique in flavor, but also appetizing.
Bacon in every place in China has different characteristics. Today, we will take Hunan bacon as an example to talk about how to clean bacon before eating. If you want to clean bacon, you need to know the growth history of bacon first. Hunan bacon, also known as Sanxiang bacon, is completely different from Guangdong bacon in beauty and coolness, and Sichuan bacon in hemp and spicy. Its biggest feature is fragrance and fierceness.
Liang Shiqiu once said: Hunan bacon is the best in the world. Selecting local pigs with thin skin, tender meat and moderate weight as raw materials, it is necessary to cut clean pork into 5 cm wide strips and prepare spices (stir-fry coarse salt and add five-spice powder, pepper, star anise, fennel, cinnamon and clove, etc.). ), marinate for about 10- 15 days, then take it out and hang it on a wooden beam, and pass 65438+. Smoking day and night makes the skin of bacon extremely hard, and sawdust, rice husk, corncob and pine and cypress branches are all burning materials, so bacon will come into contact with a lot of dust and impurities in the long-term smoking process, until the final bacon looks dark and unsightly, but it is actually comparable to Australian rooting, sausage and Cantonese barbecue. In the new year, if you want bacon to be delicious and eat more safely, you must first learn to clean bacon.
When washing bacon, many friends are puzzled. Is it better to use rice washing water or alkaline water? In fact, it is ok to wash bacon with two kinds of water. After the rice washing water is heated, soak the bacon in the rice washing water for about 20 minutes. This method also has some truth, because there is starch in the rice washing water, which can absorb part of the oil on the surface of bacon. Some friends also like to wash bacon with alkaline water. The alkali here is what we usually call baking soda. Melt baking soda in water, then add bacon. Oil is hydrolyzed to alcohol and carboxylate under the catalysis of alkali. This process is called saponification.
Yue Yue was very worried about cleaning bacon, so she asked her aunt, who is a chef, the skills of cleaning bacon, and she also shared all the methods and skills of cleaning bacon correctly: whether washing bacon with rice water or alkaline water, if these two steps are not done, bacon will still be dirty and not delicious.
Step 1: Bake bacon skin with fire and scrape it clean with a kitchen knife.
Cut the bacon to be used and bake it directly on the gas stove or blowtorch. Be careful to bake only the side with bacon skin until the bacon skin turns black and begins to drip oil. Then, use a kitchen knife to scrape off the dirt and burnt places on the surface of the bacon. This baking step is particularly important and not as complicated as expected. It can also be said that bacon is sterilized at high temperature.
Step 2: Boil.
After the bacon is washed with hot water, it can't be directly fried, so it still can't stimulate the mellow flavor of bacon, and the pigskin will be difficult to chew. We need to cut it into large pieces and boil it in boiling water for about 30 minutes. This step is also essential, mainly to reduce the smoky and salty taste of bacon and remove some oil from bacon.
After taking out and cooling, you can change the knife into thin slices. At this time, the bacon has become very beautiful, the fat is bright and transparent, and the lean meat is bright red and attractive. You can fry leek flowers, peas, red hearts, white radish, taro, bacon-flavored clay pot rice, steamed bacon boxes, dried bamboo shoots, dried radish, dried bean curd or lettuce with bacon, and the practice will never change. We can decide according to our own preferences. Whether it is fried or steamed, whether it is boiled or stewed, it is a good partner for dinner and wine, and the taste of bacon will be stronger!
Is bacon delicious and not clean? The chef teaches you three skills, so the correct steps to clean bacon are:
1. Barbecue skin,
2. Wash with rice washing water or alkaline water,
3. Wash and boil in water.
Only by cleaning the bacon in strict accordance with these three steps can it be clean, hygienic and reassuring, and the bacon will taste more mellow, that is, it will not be greasy or salty!
Tips for curing bacon:
In addition, during the Chinese New Year, people usually eat too much bacon. Also pay attention to reasonable preservation. We must keep the bacon in a low temperature and dry environment. Usually, the shelf life of bacon is 3-6 months. After this time, you'd better not eat.
Conclusion: Wash bacon in the New Year, don't just use hot water, master the skills, the bacon is clean, hygienic and delicious, and the key is not salty.
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