Salo is a product that is appropriate on both everyday and festive table.
Especially if it is smoked.
The aroma of haze stimulates appetite and improves the taste of the product.
How can I make smoked bacon at home?
Smoked lard at home - the general principles of cooking
You can use absolutely any lard for smoking, this cooking method will make each morsel tasty and fragrant. But fat is especially appreciated with layers, no more than 3 fingers thick. Yes, yes, it is precisely with the fingers that it is customary to measure thickness, and this tradition has been going on since ancient times.
Before cooking smoked bacon at home, the product should be salted, it can be cold or marinade. The latter may contain any spices and additives, but the salt should be enough to pop up a chicken egg. But you can also cook marinades with heat treatment. In the process of cooking, all the microbes are killed, the fat is salted normally and no unpleasant surprises are expected.
How to smoke fat:
1. In the smokehouse. Variant of preparation of this product, the process is usually long and cold method can take up to 3 days, the product is dehydrated, acquires a special aroma and taste, is stored for a long time. Hot smoking up to 5 hours, the product acquires a smoked flavor, remains juicy, the taste slightly resembles boiled lard.
2. In analogs smoking sheds. Most often these are pans, grills, cauldrons, in which a small amount of chips is laid and hot smoking is carried out. The option is simple, fast enough, usually does not take more than 2-3 hours.
3. Artificial smoking. This is boiling, rubbing or marinating lard in a solution of liquid smoke with the addition of natural dyes (onion peel, tea).
Whatever option is chosen for cooking smoked fat at home, you need to use a fresh product, without foreign odors and signs of spoilage. You should not try to reanimate having a strange smell or lard beginning to disappear. Otherwise, time will simply be spent.
Recipe 1: Classical smoked lard at home
To make smoked bacon at home, you need a real smokehouse. Usually it is a large barrel, under which there is a stove, sawdust for smoldering is laid inside. Products are laid out on a lattice or hung from hooks. Now on sale you can find electric smokehouse. For the preparation of fat suitable any of these devices.
Ingredients Required
• fat;
• salt;
• garlic;
• pepper;
• Bay leaf.
Cooking method
1. Prepare a brine (brine). To prepare it, pour an arbitrary amount of water, you can warm it up a little and begin to dissolve the salt. We drop a raw egg, pour (and dissolve!) As much salt until it pops up. No more salt is needed, otherwise the layers of meat in fat will become tough.
2. Add peas, bay leaves, chopped garlic. In general, any spices to taste.
3. We put the pieces of bacon into a cold brine, put the oppression and remove it in a cool place for 4-7 days for salting.
4. After the fat is cooked, we take it out of the brine, hang it on hooks or lay it on a wire rack, give a couple of hours to dry.
5. Prepare a smokehouse, make a fire or turn on ten. Laying sawdust, for the flavor you can add juniper berries. Put a couple of pieces of sugar on top. Hang the bacon and cook. At a temperature of 20 ° C for at least 24 hours, if above 40 ° C, the product will cook much faster.
Recipe 2: Smoked lard at home in a cauldron
The recipe for those who do not have the opportunity to cook smoked lard at home in a real smokehouse. It will take a large cauldron, the higher it is, the lower the temperature will be inside and, accordingly, the better the final taste of the product.
Ingredients Required
• fat;
• salt;
• pepper;
• flour.
You will also need a lattice for pieces of bacon, a tight lid, slivers or sawdust, preferably cherry.
Cooking method
1. Sprinkle salo with pepper and salt, and remove to cold room for salting for 2 weeks. But you can use bacon and from the brine, the preparation of which is described in the recipe above.
2. We clean the ready-made pieces of fat from salt or simply remove it from the brine and let the liquid drain.
3. Lay the chips or sawdust on the bottom of the cauldron, cover with foil.
4. We put the pieces of fat on the grid, placed in the cauldron.
5. From flour and water prepare the batter, the consistency of sour cream. We cover the edges of the lid in order to seal it on the cauldron.
6. Turn on the stove on a strong fire, mark 15 minutes. Turn off the fire, leave the fat for 2-3 hours to cool completely. Cover all this time can not be lifted.
Recipe 3: Smoked lard at home with liquid smoke.
Liquid smoke allows you to cook smoked lard at home using a simplified technology. If everything is done correctly, the product will get the aroma of smoke and a pleasant taste, but it will remain firm and look like real cold smoked fat.
Ingredients Required
• fat;
• Red pepper.
For brine per liter:
• 0.1 kg of salt;
• 50 ml of liquid smoke;
• 2 handfuls of onion peels.
Cooking method
1. Boil onion peel in water with salt for 5-7 minutes, filter and immediately add liquid smoke.
2. Fold pieces of fat into any container, it is better to take them with layers. Fill with hot onion pickle so that it completely covers the pieces. Cover with a lid. If the pieces float and do not survive the lid, then you can put a little oppression.
3. Leave for 12-20 hours to marinate, time depends on the thickness of the pieces.
4. Remove from brine, dry with a napkin and rub each piece with red pepper. You can also use chopped garlic. Then we wrap each piece in cling film and put it in the fridge.
Recipe 4: Smoked lard at home with cooking
Another recipe for cooking smoked fat at home with liquid smoke, but this time it is cooked, it turns out soft and tender. You will also need onion peel, pepper peas and other aromatic ingredients.
Ingredients Required
• fresh fat;
• garlic;
• black or red pepper.
For decoction:
• 1 liter of water;
• 180 gr. salts;
• a handful of husks;
• bay leaf;
• 90 gr. liquid smoke;
• 4 peppercorns.
Cooking method
1. Prepare a decoction, for this we mix everything, boil for 2 minutes.
2. Add pieces of bacon to the broth, bring to a boil. Cook for 20 minutes, then turn it off and hold it under the lid until it cools completely. Better to leave for the night.
3. We take out the pieces, remove the stuck husk, dry them with paper napkins.
4. Chop garlic and mix with pepper. Rub each piece of fragrant mixture, wrapped in foil and put into the freezer.
Recipe 5: Smoked suet at home in a slow cooker
The appearance of such a helper as a slow cooker made cooking smoked bacon at home even easier. This recipe is also with liquid smoke, but differs from previous versions in its simplicity and speed.
Ingredients Required
• a piece of bacon about 500 grams;
• seasoning for lard;
• red pepper;
• salt;
• 8 spoons of smoke.
Cooking method
1. In a bowl pour salt, a little pepper, seasoning for fat and pour 4 spoons of liquid smoke. Put a piece of sandpaper down. Sprinkle with salt and seasoning on top, pour another 4 spoons of smoke. Fill with water so that it barely covers the piece. We put the oppression and leave to marinate for 5 hours.
2. We shift the marinated piece to the slow cooker, and also place the skin to be at the bottom. Pour the liquid in which the fat was marinated.
3. Turn on the extinguishing mode for 40 minutes. After the time has passed, leave the product marinated inside the slow cooker for another hour. Then take out, cool. If desired, rub with any spices.
Recipe 6: Smoked lard at home in the oven
Option cooking tasty smoked fat at home in the sleeve for baking with liquid smoke. Tea brewing is used as a colorant and additional flavor. It is important that it is natural, without fruit additives. Salo is better to use with layers, for this recipe you can take the peritoneum.
Ingredients Required
• any piece of bacon about 1 kg, you can have a few small ones;
• garlic;
• Red pepper.
For the marinade:
• teaspoon;
• 100 ml of liquid smoke;
• bay leaf;
• 200 gr. salts;
• litere of water.
Cooking method
1. Prepare the marinade, for this we boil water with salt, pour tea brewing tea and immediately turn it off. Insist 5 minutes, filter and pour in liquid smoke.
2. Immerse the lard in the still hot pickle, leave to marinate for 24 hours, you need to keep in the refrigerator.
3. We take out the salted pieces, we put in a sleeve for roasting. We tie the ends on both sides, make a hole from above.
4. Bake for 30 minutes at 180 ° C, then you can cut the sleeve and fry the piece for another 15 minutes.
5. Get out, cool to a warm state. Rubbed with chopped garlic and pepper.
Recipe 7: Smoked lard at home with pre-boiling
A feature of this technology is pre-scalding of fat. This allows you to make the product more tender, as well as reduce the time of smoking. To cook smoked bacon at home with this recipe, you will need a high saucepan or tank. On it you will need to put metal rods, for which pieces of bacon are hung on the hooks.
Ingredients Required
• 1.5 kg of fat;
• 0.3 kg of salt;
• onion;
• 5 cloves of garlic;
• 2 liters of water.
You will also need ordinary food foil and sawdust.
Cooking method
1. Pour salt into water, bring to a boil. Immerse the chopped lard and boil after boiling for exactly 3 minutes.
2. Put the pieces in a container, add chopped garlic cloves and onion, pour the brine in which it was cooked. Let cool and remove for 4 days in the fridge.
3. We take out the ready fat, hang it on hooks and let it dry for several hours so that the brine does not drip.
4. Put 2-3 handfuls of sawdust on a piece of foil, fold the envelope, leaving holes, put the bottom of the pan (cistern).
5. We have twigs, hang the fat on the hooks. Tightly close the top of the barrel with foil, preferably in 2 layers, we press to the edges.
6. Turn on the stove, heat the tank for a minute and reduce the heat to minimum. Cooking lard 1.5-2 hours. Then turn off the stove and keep it still in the tank until it cools completely.
Smoked lard at home - tips and tricks
• To fat well smoked, you should not make large pieces and better if they are in the form of oblong rectangles. Optimum weight to 400 gr.
• The product should smell like smoke, not spices. Therefore, you should not get carried away and add a lot of seasonings and fragrant herbs to the pickle, especially as regards bay leaf, cloves.
• Cold smoked lard is perfectly stored in a dry and ventilated room for several months. But if the product is cooked in a hot way, then it is better to pack the excess in an airtight film and put it in the freezer.
• Fat readiness can be identified by color. As soon as it becomes red-brown, it is ready. Often, beginners do not guess the temperature and get the product of hot smoked and much earlier than planned. Experience comes with practice.
• If, in the process of boiling, pieces of bacon are bent by an arc, then they need to be laid up on a flat surface with the sandpaper up, pressed down with a cutting board and put under pressure. You can pour the pickle and pickle (cool) further in this form.
