Food should be not only healthy, but also tasty, give pleasure while eating. Otherwise, there’s no use in it, only the cost of money, effort and time. And what can be tastier when you get hungry than a piece of fragrant salty bacon flavored with black pepper, and a slice of fresh black bread?
Bacon and fat
In Germany, Hungary, Poland, fat is especially popular. What is it - you ask. The word is translated as all the same fat. But not everything, but cooked in a special way. Firstly, only pork fat is suitable for salted pork fat. It should be fairly dense, albeit soft. The subcutaneous layer is best suited for these purposes. Secondly, it is important to remember about
fat, that it is necessarily salted or salted and smoked bacon. Thirdly, in its preparation can not do without the use of spices. The traditional ones are used: bay leaf, allspice and peppercorns. Plus, those that the hostesses prefer if the product is done at home. And I also want to add about the fat, that this is an important component of a huge number of recipes. It is put in many dishes, for example, in cereals, pea and bean soups, they are
stuffed with meat to give it tenderness and aroma. Well, of course, they eat just like that, in the form in which the product is obtained after salting. By the way, the Eastern Slavic peoples, actively consuming lard for food, did not call it lard. That this dish is close to our national cuisines, it became clear when the first cookbooks appeared, revealing the art of cooking various dishes.
How to salt salted fat at home
There are a lot of recipes on how to make a natural product yourself, at home. To begin, consider the simplest. Under the pork fat, fat is taken from the spinal and lateral parts of the carcass. The undercoat is more suitable for heating on lard, in sausages and other products. Cut the workpieces into equal strips or bars 10-12 cm long and 20-30 wide. If there are layers of meat in them - great, it will turn out even tastier. Rub each piece generously with ordinary table salt. Only large and non-iodized (otherwise the fat will turn dark, in rusty smudges and with an unpleasant aftertaste). Try to add all 4 sides of the bars. Then take a wide enameled pan or basin. Sprinkle its bottom with salt. With the skin down, lay out the fat in layers. You can salting each layer. Cover them with sliced garlic cloves, peppercorns and bay leaves. If you want to make Hungarian bacon, rub each piece of bacon with paprika (red pepper). Then the lard will need to be smoked.
Pickling
When the pan is full, cover it with a clean rag or a lid, load on top, and leave it in the kitchen for 4-5 days. The lard should stand for some time at room temperature in order to saturate it well with spices. Then you should shift the pieces: the top - down, and vice versa. Take the pot to the cellar or place it on the lower shelf in the refrigerator. The bacon should be cool for another 2-3 weeks. The thicker and larger the pieces, the longer the pickling takes. Therefore, we indicate the approximate time. Ready fat is soft, a match easily enters into it. Now cut the skin, scrape off excess salt with a knife, cut into thin slices and enjoy!
Quick recipe
It is also quite simple and quick to prepare bacon in this way. Put the fat in the refrigerator so that it freezes a little and cuts better. Divide it into strips 4-5 cm wide. Thoroughly salt it. Then rub thoroughly with ground pepper as well. You can finely break dry laurel, take coriander, paprika, crush the head of garlic through the garlic, mix and rub each bar well with this composition. In addition, cuts can be made into the flesh of the bacon and garlic cloves and bay leaves can be placed in them. The future bacon should be covered and left for 7-9 hours in the refrigerator. And then about half an hour or a little more (depending on the stiffness of the product) boil for a couple or soot. Readiness check with a match or a toothpick. Then let the fat cool down, "relax." And served at the table.