Smoked meat is an exquisite delicacy that diversifies any table. Buying smoked meat in a store is not financially profitable, and besides, it may not be of the highest quality: salted, under-salted, too fresh, tough and so on. Not to mention all kinds of harmful additives. Many lovers of such food are helped by the home smokehouse. Smoked meat will be meat or cold, cooked in brine or salted - only you can choose. In any case, the finished product will be better than the store. Today we will share the recipes of brines for smoking meat - simple and more complex. Let's start with the choice of meat.
How to choose meat for smoking
Not one, even the most refined meat smoking brine will help to prepare a delicious dish if the main ingredient is not selected correctly. If the meat is too hard, spoiled or old, then no marinade and proper salting can save the situation, every experienced chef knows this.
At the market or in the store, you must ask the seller to push a piece of meat with your finger, you can do this yourself. If the surface is resilient and quickly takes its former shape after pressing, it means the product is fresh, you can take it.
The presence of even a slight unpleasant odor indicates a spoiled product, it is better to go to the next counter.
The meat should not have a whitish film or mucus - this, again, will signal stale.
Which meat to choose for smoking - the buyer decides. It can be a fatty piece or more lean. The ideal option is pork, beef, chicken and even lamb meat - as a result they get a great taste, and the prepared brine for smoking meat will make the dish even tastier. We pass to salting.
Proper salting of meat for smoking
Salt meat for smoking is extremely simple, there is no specific recipe. This is usually done like this:
- The meat is cut into pieces, sprinkled with a glass of salt on top. The quantity should be such that each piece is well coated. Together with salt, you can use any seasoning, pepper, which will make the dish more flavorful in the end.
- Garlic is good for salting. It needs to be cut into small slices and placed between pieces. The amount of this ingredient is chosen to taste.
- We put the meat in the refrigerator. Salting time can last from several hours to a day. According to the recommendations of experienced smokers, it takes 12 hours to stand the meat in this form, since it is during this period that the product absorbs the required amount of salt.
After salting, we send the pieces to the home smokehouse. Hot or cold smoked meat will be up to you - in any case, after such salting, the dish will turn out to be tasty, tender.
Smoked Honey Marinade
If you want to treat yourself and your guests with a more interesting treat, we suggest marinating the meat. Hot smoked marinades are diverse, there are many, but today we want to offer you an interesting option with the addition of honey. This recipe is suitable for smoking chicken or pork.
For the marinade you will need:
- a kilogram of meat;
- a third of a glass of lemon juice;
- a quarter cup of honey;
- 4 cloves of garlic;
- favorite spices;
- 130 ml of olive oil;
- salt and pepper to taste.
Let's start cooking brine for smoking meat. To do this, we need a deep container, which then fits the piece itself. Pour olive oil, add a teaspoon of salt and spices. Mix well to dissolve the salt. Next, pour in the lemon juice and add the garlic passed through the crush, mix until a homogeneous mass is obtained. Last of all, launch honey. If it is sugared, pre-melt in a water bath. Mix the brine for smoking meat until a single mass is obtained.
Meat recipe
In the resulting marinade, we need to put all the pieces of meat, arrange them so that each one is covered with a fragrant liquid.
We remove the container with the product in the refrigerator, pickling will take about eight hours. During this period, it is necessary to stably turn the meat so that each side is saturated with brine equally.
Then you can go directly to smoking - both hot and cold.
Kefir marinade
This is an amazing marinade that will allow you to salt the meat with high quality, give it an excellent taste and amazing softness. Again, this method is suitable for both hot and cold smoking. The ingredients that are needed for cooking are found in every home. Per kilogram of meat will go:
- a glass of kefir;
- a teaspoon of sugar;
- salt and seasoning to taste;
- a few leaves of mint;
- two cloves of garlic;
- some olive oil (if not, use sunflower).
Preparation of brine and pickling
Pour kefir into a deep container; it should be at least 2.5 percent fat. Pour sugar and salt. You don’t need to salt a lot, a tablespoon is enough. Mix, add seasonings, if you want.
We grind the mint leaves, a little crumple them to give more flavor, the same should be done with garlic. Spread in kefir, mix. Add a couple of tablespoons of oil, again mix well.
Pieces of meat are placed in the marinade so that everyone is well covered, and put in the refrigerator. Such meat should be marinated a day. Do not forget to mix the contents of the container from time to time, turn the meat over.
Unlike all other recipes, such a brine for smoking meat will make the finished product softer, more tender. Suitable for hot and cold smoking.
Simple pickle
Some do not like to bother with cooking marinades for a long time, preferring simpler recipes. We have prepared just for you. To taste, the finished dish will turn out standard, as in a store - a simple, classic way. Many products will not be needed, every housewife has everything:
- three liters of water;
- one lemon;
- spices and salt;
- three lavrushki.
Cooking!
Pour water into a saucepan, place chopped lemon and spices there, add salt (3-4 tablespoons). Turn on the gas, bring the contents to a boil, remove from heat, cool to room temperature.
In brine we put the meat, cut into pieces, put in the refrigerator. As you can see, a very simple salting for smoking. In brine, the meat should lie for a day, it is necessary to stir the liquid from time to time.
For those in no hurry
Hot smoked meat recipe is not for everyone. Usually we prepare brines so that the product is quickly marinated. For example, they gathered with their family to go to the countryside to relax and smoke meat there. Or a holiday is planned, or maybe just wanted smoked meats. In the morning they put the product in brine, and by evening it is already possible to cook. The maximum the next day. Needless to say, convenient. But if you want to pamper your relatives and friends with a truly royal treat, you will have to suffer a little. But the method we offer will really make a balyk (for such snacks this is the best option) is simply gorgeous: tender, juicy, there will be nothing superfluous in the taste - only meat.
Cooking brine.
We need to pour water into the container (boiled, cooled), add a tablespoon of sugar and salt so that after its dissolution in the water the chicken egg does not sink. We spread the meat, previously pierced in several places, into the brine.
Now remove the workpiece in the refrigerator for three weeks. Every day it is necessary to turn the meat over and pour over with brine. If you cut a piece into small pieces, the process will be twice as fast, but in the finished form - smoked - the meat will not be as juicy as if you leave it in a large piece (about one kilogram).
After the time of salting is over, we remove a piece (s) from the brine, and send it to the smokehouse. In addition to smoking, such meat can be fried, stewed or, boiled, rolled into jars, it will turn out amazingly tasty stew.
There is another option for the preparation of brine, it will not take so much time:
- In five liters of boiled chilled water, add 250 grams of salt, eight parsley, 20-25 peas of pepper. The salt should completely dissolve.
- Pieces of meat are placed in the brine (about 30 cm long, 10 wide).
- We close the container with a lid and put it in the refrigerator or cellar for four days. Do not forget to turn the meat in brine every day.
After salting, pieces should be grated well with paprika and garlic, placed in a smokehouse and left until fully cooked.
These are the simplest recipes with which you can cook delicious smoked meat yourself. Thanks to a wide range of methods, your table will always have a varied home-smoked dish.