Not one festive feast is complete without meat dishes, hot and cold. It is this product that gives the body a feeling of satiety and the necessary energy, strength for further life. Therefore, the culture of cooking meat of various varieties and species is extremely high in almost every nation. And we recall such a piquant, and once traditional dish, like a milk pig. After all, these are good old recipes of Russian national cuisine.
For those who are not in the subject
First, let's clarify what constitutes a milk pig. This is a pig, which at the time of the slaughter was fed by mother's milk and did not eat any other food. In gutted form (heart and liver remain), it should weigh from 1 to 5 kg. It is possible and less, but there will be not enough meat. Most importantly, the milk pig is almost dietary. The meat in it should still be without fatty layers. Then his taste will be special, the very one for which the dish is appreciated!
Cooking methods
And now about cooking methods. Almost in the kitchen of every people in Europe there are a couple of branded recipes. This is a milk pig in the oven, and on a spit, and fried, and stuffed, and so on, so on, so on. Here are some interesting options:
Method 1, cold
Pre-scald the gutted carcass, scrape off the bristles, and scorch thoroughly. Then wipe it thoroughly to remove traces of soot and soot, the remains of the bristles from the skin. From the inside of the carcass, the spine is cut so that it can be slightly bent and easier to process. Next, the milk pig is rubbed on the outside with a lemon, so that the juice saturates the skin. Then the meat is placed in cold water for a couple of hours - so that it is soaked, cleansed of blood, etc., so that a burning smell comes out. The next stage - the carcass is wrapped in a linen napkin, tied to a stick, which is placed across cast iron, so that the milk pig is inside, poured cold water, where salt, roots and other spices are put, meat is cooked for about an hour and a half. It is important that the broth boils quite a bit, slightly! Thanks to this, scale will not form from meat!
The finished carcass is taken out, cut into portions and placed back into the broth. There the meat cools down. They serve it with horseradish, which is cooked with sour cream. As a side dish suitable jelly from meat, stewed or boiled vegetables, porridge. Although in the old days he was eaten just like that, only with horseradish.
Recipe 2, Hot
And here is another primordially Russian recipe when piglets were cooked for Vasily, i.e. on the day of St. Basil, or on the
Old New Year. It is stuffed, as expected, with buckwheat porridge, the most common in Russia. So we need a milk pig. You should buy it in such a way that you weigh one and a half to two kilograms. Still need two hundred gr. buckwheat, 120 gr. melted butter, medium onion, 5 cool eggs, 100 gr. vodka, boiled carrot, a bunch of parsley and other herbs, seasonings, a couple of olives, salt. The dish is prepared in this way:
- The carcass is processed, cleaned of bristles, gutted, if not bought ready-made. It is well washed inside and out, then thoroughly dried with paper towels. The meat is well rubbed inside with salt.
- The filling is placed inside the whole carcass. To do this, buckwheat is washed and boiled in salted water until it is ready, crumbly. Then the onion is finely chopped, fried in oil to a golden color. Eggs crumble, mix with frying, add to the porridge, and the whole stuffing is transferred to the piglet. Then the abdomen needs to be sewn up well.
- Outside, the carcass is carefully treated with salt, moistened with vodka until the skin becomes stiff. Now the piglet is placed on the baking sheet of the oven. Here, such a subtlety of technology is important. Thin chips, preferably birch or fruit tree, should be placed on a baking sheet. And on them - a carcass. Pour ghee on top and - into the oven, preheated from 180 to 200 degrees. Or just on cooking foil, without slivers. When the skin grabs a “blush”, reduce the temperature in the oven to 160-150 degrees. Now the hostess should be careful and pour the juice that is formed during baking, the carcass every 10 minutes.So that the piglet, ears and legs, as well as the tail of the piglet are not charred, they must be wrapped in culinary foil.
The roast is ready - it should be properly chopped. The pig’s back cuts along the entire spine while the carcass cools slightly. Then the threads are cut, the porridge is carefully laid out. The piglet itself is cut into portions and again folded, as a whole, into a large dish. From all sides it is covered with porridge. For decoration, you can chop the boiled carrots in circles and chop with greens. Instead of eyes, insert olives, in the mouth - a bunch of parsley or a green apple.
Recommendations
The crust on the piglet will be more crispy and rosy if it is well lubricated with soy sauce before baking. And you can stuff not only porridge, but also a liver with a heart, and even another liver. The main thing is that in this case there are more spices, especially parsley, allspice, cumin and coriander.