Bacon is a characteristic delicacy in the southwest region, bacon has yellow and red, has the general smoke taste, fat but not greasy, salty and fragrant. Bacon is mainly made in the southern region, in the past due to the lack of refrigerators, meat food is difficult to store, people's meat food and edible oil mainly rely on the end of the slaughter of the pig, boiled lard can be stored at room temperature for a long time, and fresh pork can not be stored for a long time, because the southern region is hot and humid, is not conducive to the preservation of meat food, the ancestors in the long-term exploration, groped out the best way to preserve meat food is to make it into bacon, sausage and jar meat can be preserved for a long time, This can meet the needs of meat food in a balanced manner throughout the year.
After the meat is marinated and smoked, the meat quality has undergone great changes, the bacon has the yellow and red, the general fire and smoke taste, the bacon is mellow and fragrant, fat but not greasy, thin but not stiff, and the entrance has an endless aftertaste. Bacon processing is carried out in the lunar month, and is processed every year, so it is called bacon. November 7 entered the winter, one of the keys to making high-quality bacon is the selection of pork raw materials, and the second is the temperature when marinating, the lower the temperature when marinating, the better the quality of the cured bacon. The third is the selection of pickling spices and pickling methods. The fourth is the smoking materials and smoking methods, and the fifth is the storage conditions. Winter is the best season to marinate bacon, in the past it was made around the winter solstice festival, the winter solstice is the coldest time of the year, if the temperature is too high during the curing time, the cured pork is easy to rot and stink, and the quality of bacon is not good.
First, the season of cured bacon: the traditional cured bacon is generally chosen before the Spring Festival, before the Spring Festival is mainly low temperature, easy to marinate high-quality bacon, followed by the countryside is usually slaughtered a few days before the Spring Festival, so over time it has been formed in the lunar calendar in December, that is, cured bacon, sausage, ham, jar meat. If the temperature is too high and the curing time is long, the cured pork is easy to rot and stink, and the quality of the bacon is not good. Under normal circumstances, bacon can be made when the temperature reaches below 5 °C, and some bacon processing factories in the northwest of Guizhou Province are made in other seasons except for the hot season in summer. Due to the high price of pork in the month of pig, people have now advanced to the end of the year, that is, after the middle of November began to pickle, the price of pork in this period is much cheaper than the month of wax, as long as the temperature is suitable, it is not impossible to make bacon in advance, so that you can buy cheap pork production, why not?
Second, the selection and pretreatment of marinated pork: bacon raw materials can choose pork, beef, mutton and rabbit meat, generally marinated in pork first, pig head, pig feet, pig intestine, pig liver can be made into delicious cured products. Cut the fresh pork into strips, 1-2 catties each, do not boneless and peel, in order to facilitate the convenience of eating later, usually use a blowtorch to pre-burn the roast pork skin.
Third, the selection and proportion of pickled spices: pickled spices are more, each place has the proportion of each place, generally according to their own taste to choose and combine, usually used spices are pepper powder, salt, pepper, sugar, liquor, five-spice powder, soy sauce, monosodium glutamate, star anise powder, angelica powder, etc. The recipe is different from place to place, the recipe we usually use in the northwest of Guizhou is generally 100 catties of pork, with 5 catties of sugar, 3 catties of refined salt, 2.5 catties of koji wine, 3 catties of soy sauce, pepper powder, pepper powder. The marinade needs to be stir-fried before marinating so that it can quickly soak into the pork.
4. Pickling method: Evenly coat fresh pork strips with pepper powder, salt, pepper, sugar, liquor and other spices and marinate for about a week. When pickling, pepper powder, salt, pepper are weighed according to the taste of each person and need to be fried, the temperature reaches about 70 degrees, and attention is also paid not to fry the paste, the marinated meat is best to be freshly slaughtered pigs, cattle or sheep, first of all, the pepper powder, salt, pepper, sugar and other spices are evenly smeared on the cured meat, and then evenly sprayed with liquor and soy sauce, and the liquor requires an alcohol degree of more than 50 degrees. Finally, the marinated meat is stacked in a jar, cement pool or large iron pot and marinated for 5~7 days, turning it once a day.
Fifth, smoked and roasted: after pickling and then with wood, sawdust, it is best to choose the cypress branches and cedar leaves with a clear fragrance to smoke, generally smoked and roasted over low heat, if the fire temperature rises to 160-200 degrees during smoking, it will lead to bacon such as benzopyrene, tetraxylene and other first-class carcinogens, eat more of this bacon will have a bad impact on the body, so the temperature must be controlled when smoking. Usually smoked for more than 4 hours with a moisture content of less than 25%. The smoked bacon has a smell of smoke and smoke, which is very difficult to swallow, so it can be smoked and roasted without wood, and air-dried, that is, after marinating for about 7 days, the marinated pork is taken out and hung on a bamboo pole for air drying. The processing of bacon pays special attention to the key point of smoking, the farmers in our village are to extend the smoking time and pay attention to the choice of firewood, in the process of smoking, try to make the moisture in the meat smoke out, in the smoking and roasting firewood we generally use cypress branches to smoke and roast, the bacon smoked with cypress branches is better than the smoke and roast with miscellaneous firewood.
Sixth, storage: after the end of the smoke, wait for the bacon to dry and hang in a dry and ventilated place, the people homemade bacon sausages can be put for several months without adding any preservatives, if the firewood is smoked for a few days, kept in the earthen wall house, it will not be bad for more than a year. The quality of bacon is closely related to the salt, smoking time and storage place of curing, if the amount of salt is small and the ambient temperature is high, the meat is easy to rot and stink. Generally, the roasting time is best more than 4 hours, so that most of the moisture in the pork can be discharged. Generally, it can maintain the unique aroma of bacon for a long time when placed in a ventilated and dry place, and it has a halazi flavor for more than two years. In the southern region, due to the humid and hot environment, bacon generally begins to mold in about two months, and bacon is easy to mold and deteriorate due to improper storage, reducing its quality.