Properly cooked lard can take its rightful place even on the festive table. There are many recipes for the preparation of this traditional Slavic product. Very tasty and tender fat is obtained if it is cooked with spices.
Pick your recipe
You will need
-
- fat - 1.5 kg
- salt - about 0.5 kg
- water
- Bay leaf
- peppercorns
- garlic to taste.
Instruction manual
1
Carefully pick lard for further processing. You can take frozen, but it is better if there is fresh lard with a well-processed skin and a layer of meat. The selected lard must be thoroughly washed and cut into pieces convenient for cooking, i.e. so that they easily fit into the pan. Pieces of approximately 10x8 cm are best suited for uniform salting.
2
Pour water into the pan and add salt in a proportion of 1 liter of water - 100 grams of salt. After the brine begins to boil, all prepared spices are added to it. In the classic recipe for cooking boiled lard, bay leaf and black peppercorns are used as spices. The aroma and taste of lard can be somewhat diversified by selecting the appropriate spices. In addition to bay leaves and pepper, you can add cloves, coriander, caraway seeds, dill and mustard seeds. Prepared pieces of bacon are immersed in a brine with spices. At the same time, it must be ensured that they are completely immersed in the brine. Simmer for at least 40 minutes.
3
Then the pieces of bacon should be removed from the brine, lightly dried with a linen towel or napkin and, still hot, sprinkled with a mixture of chopped garlic and ground black pepper. Spices of bacon covered with spices should be wrapped in parchment paper and a kitchen towel until they cool completely. When the lard has cooled, it must be unwrapped and refrigerated.
You can do something else. Allow the boiled pieces of fat to cool in the brine and only then remove and cover with chopped garlic and ground pepper. Then wrap in foil and allow some time, about three hours, to soak in spices.
Store boiled lard in the refrigerator. But it will be better if there is a place for him in the freezer. Frozen slices are very convenient to cut into thin plates.
Useful advice
If you cook the brine on the broth of onion peels, then you can get lard that looks very much like smoked.
Related article
How to salt salted so that it is soft?