How to pickle bacon?

So, you decided to pick lard yourself. But before that you need to choose it - and you go to the market (or to the store - but still the best fat is usually "found" in the market). How to choose the right amount of lard for pickling?

• good fat has a homogeneous structure with one or two meat veins and a delicate white-pink color;


• good fat should be soft and elastic;


• a good fat can easily be pierced with a sharp knife, but if the knife passes badly - fat is present in the fat;


• a good fat should have a thin and soft skin - the thicker it is, the harder it will turn out to be salted bacon;


• if the fat is yellowish or grayish, it is too old.

And make sure that there is a brand on the piece with bacon - stamp of sanitary control. You do not want to pickle bacon, infected with parasites?

You meticulously examined the whole range of meat market and finally chose a piece of fat, which you are going to salinize. How to do it right? Exist three main ways to pickle bacon - dry salting, wet salting (in brine) and cooking. Sometimes, when salting, these methods are combined (for example, first the bacon is brewed, then soaked in brine).

If you want to pickle lard quickly and without much trouble, you will dry salting. In this case, you need to grate the fat with a large saltand sprinkle with pepper and spices (optional). Then the fat is wrapped in paper, put in a freezer, and after a couple of weeks, the salted fat is ready. Salted in this way, the fat retains its freshness for a month.

Using wet method of pickling fat is salted in brine. It is cut into large pieces, folded into a capacious container and poured brine. Salo will be ready in a couple of weeks, the main thing - do not forget every three days to change the brine. This method is more labor-intensive than the previous one, but in the end a very delicate salted fat is obtained, which retains its taste throughout the year (if stored in the freezer).

Cooking of bacon - the safest way to reduce the riskinfection with parasites. Before salting, bacon is cooked with the addition of a large amount of salt and spices. While the boiled bacon has not yet cooled down, it is garmented with garlic, once again salted, folded into a linen bag and placed in the freezer. After a week, the salted fat will be ready, you can store it for six months.

Having weighed all the pros and cons, you decided on the best way to pick lard. The exact recipe would ... Offer you a pair salted salad recipes. Let's start with classical way. Take a pound of lard and plenty of it.salt it with a large salt (not iodized!). Leave the bacon for two days in a cold place. After a lapse of two days, put a pan of water on the fire, and when it boils, put the lard in it (you do not have to shake the salt off of it) and the onion husks. Add spices to the water: laurel leaves (5-6 pieces), ground black pepper (1 tsp), red pepper (1/2 tsp), a pair of garlic heads, salt, peppercorn. Let the water boil and cook for 7 minutes. Then cool the fat, peel it from the onion husk, fold it into a cellophane bag and put it in the freezer. In a day it will be possible to eat it.

If you want to pick salo in brine, you first need, of course, to prepare a brine. To do this, take a glass of salt and 5 glasses of water, bring the water with salt to a boil and cool to room temperature. While the brine is being prepared, cut the fat into medium-sized pieces (to fit in a three-liter jar). Lodely put the fat into a jar, shifting layers of spices: black pepper-peas, bay leaf (3-5 pcs.), Garlic (5-8 teeth). Pour the brine into the jar and cover it tightly. Week keep the jar at room temperature, then put it in a cold place. The main trick is to lay the fat not too tightly, it can suffocate.

And do not be afraid to pick lard wrong: salted bacon is not easy to spoil. This product "takes" just as much salt as you need to overdo it - you need to try very hard.