Bacon is a meat product made by marinating fresh pork and then roasting, smoking and other processes. Bacon has strong antiseptic ability, can extend the shelf life, and has a unique flavor. The meat of the bacon is delicate, colorful, layered in taste, and easy to carry. It is a relatively common and loved food by many people.
There is a tradition of making bacon in many places. In our case, fresh pork is cut into strips and salted, stacked together for about three days to allow the pork to fully control bleeding. Then take it out and leave it to dry for a day, and then you can start the most critical step in making bacon – bacon. Put on a wooden frame, place the pork evenly on top, and cover it with a paper shell. Slowly smoked with mountain cedar branches or rice bran, the entire smoking process usually lasts from five days to a week. In the process of smoking, there can be no thick smoke, only a faint green smoke can be slowly smoked. And also to turn the pork from time to time, so that the pork is fully smoked. After a week, the pork is largely water-free and golden brown, and the bacon is smoked.
The smoked bacon is placed on the stove and hung. Only by allowing bacon to be exposed to heat at any time can it not be easily moldy. Usually, the meat of two pigs is basically enough for a rural family to eat for a whole year. Like us here, we all ate the bacon of the year, and when the bacon was almost eaten, it was time to kill the Pigs, and it was so reciprocating.
However, some people believe that the bacon should be more and more fragrant the more aged. Someone came to our mountain to buy bacon for more than three years. I always wonder, usually more than two years of bacon, will be covered with black mold, how can it still be delicious? And bacon that is more than two or three years old will have a much worse taste.
Some people also think that our bacon here has been smoked for too long, and the bacon has become dry and shriveled. However, I think that only the bacon smoked in this way can have enough smoky taste and bacon aroma. And bacon with too short a smoking time, while the flavor is insufficient, there is also the possibility of spoilage.
Bacon is salty and fragrant, and there are different ways to eat it. What we usually do here is to wash and cook the bacon, stir-fry some garlic sprouts, green peppers, and it is a delicious meal. You can also fish out some pickles, wash and cut them in a bowl, and put the bacon slices on top and steam. The oil of the bacon is dipped into the pickles, so that the meat is fat but not greasy, the fat is white, the lean meat is red, and there is a sour aroma of sauerkraut, which is most likely to make people salivate.
This is our bacon here – Sichuan bacon. A unique delicacy that has been tempered by the cold and smoked by the fire!
Do you like bacon, and how do you make it in your hometown?