Jellied meat is a snack dish, without which it is difficult to imagine a Russian festive table. Traditionally, jelly was prepared for all winter holidays and served with horseradish or mustard.
Gelatin is never added to real jelly from beef or pork, the broth freezes due to the presence of gelling substances in beef and pork bones. As a rule, such parts of carcass as shank, head, legs are used for jellied meat. It is during the cooking of these products that a large number of substances are released that contribute to the solidification of the broth.
Beef jelly can be prepared in many ways. Some people like to have as much meat as possible in the jelly and little jelly. Others, on the contrary, prefer the frozen broth in the jellied meat, while others choose the “golden mean,” when the meat and jelly in the jellied meat are approximately equal.
Inexperienced cooks, wondering how to cook beef jellied meat, often mistakenly believe that this dish is complicated and requires considerable skills. This is actually not the case. Cooking jellied meat takes a lot of time, but there are no special difficulties in cooking.
As a rule, beef jellied meat turns transparent, but when using pork meat it is very difficult to get rid of the turbidity of the broth. In addition, beef jelly is less fat than pork, this should be taken into account by those who follow the figure. As an addition to beef legs when cooking jelly, you can take just beef meat on the bone to increase the content of the meat component. If the family prefers jelly assorted, then you can add chicken to beef.
You should carefully consider the choice of meat for cooking. If a frozen product is purchased, then choose legs of a uniform light color without spots and signs that the meat has already thawed. When choosing chilled products, it is worth sniffing the selected product, and if there is a smell of old fat or ammonia, refuse to buy.
Before boiling beef jelly , you need to soak the legs in plenty of water. If the meat was frozen, soak it after preliminary thawing. The legs soaked for two to three hours should be scraped off with a knife and rinsed well under the tap.
Cooking beef jelly should be in a large pot or pressure cooker. In the latter case, the cooking time will be slightly less. It is important to correctly calculate the amount of liquid so that the broth becomes sufficiently sticky. As a rule, two parts of water are poured onto one part of the meat.
From boiled broth, it is necessary to very carefully remove foam and pop-up fat, as they adversely affect the transparency of the jelly. It is very important and correct to adjust the heating: the jelly should not boil very much, otherwise it will turn out too cloudy. But too weak heating is not suitable, as this will greatly increase the cooking time. Usually, jelly is cooked from 6 to 12 hours.
In addition to meat, vegetables and spices should be added to the broth. But they are not laid immediately, but a couple of hours before the end of cooking. As a rule, onions and carrots are used. And from spices - bay leaf, peas of black and allspice. Other spices, such as cloves or dill seeds, can also be used if desired. Spices are best placed in a saucepan in a gauze bag, so they will then be easier to extract.
The readiness of the broth can be tested empirically: if you drop a little cooled broth on your fingers, you will feel that they have become sticky. Consequently, a sufficient amount of gelling agents was released into the broth.
The cooled meat is removed from the broth, the bones are selected and cut into small pieces. Ready meat is laid out in trays or forms. Finely chopped garlic is added there. Filter the broth, remove excess fat from it with a paper towel, pour it into the trays and put them in the refrigerator until they solidify.
For a special occasion, jellied meat can be decorated with flowers carved from boiled carrots, as well as green peas, greens, or figures of boiled eggs or vegetables.