Baozi Xishi's Struggle

Chapter 431: The delicious pig's trotter jelly has a new name

Wait until the spices and salt in the iron pot have cooled down a little, sift out the spices with a fine colander, and crush them in a mortar. This will make it easier for the meat to absorb the flavor.

Because the spices are fried, even hard ones like star anise and cinnamon can be easily broken into small particles.

Pass it through a fine sieve again, repeat the process once more, and you can mix the powdered spices with coarse salt and use it to marinate the meat.

Take a large ceramic basin, pour all the mixed marinade seasonings into it, put the dried strips of meat into the basin one by one and knead them with your hands.

Wait until each side of the meat is evenly coated with a layer of marinade, then lift it up and shake it to shake off the excess salt.

Put it in the prepared large bowl, and then place a slightly smaller ceramic bowl upside down on top, and then seal it for marination.

After dipping all the meat in the marinade, Shen Yu and Yu Tao worked together to move the large basin to the south corner of the yard, where it is sheltered from the sun and well ventilated, making it the most suitable place to store winter ingredients.

Shen Yu placed a stone on the inverted basin to make it more airtight, and the process of curing the bacon came to an end.

Shen Yu told Yu Tao: "Open the basin and turn the bacon over every day so that it can be marinated more evenly."

"After three days of pickling, hang it up to dry until the surface of the meat is dry and hard, and the fat part is somewhat transparent. Then you can use cypress branches to smoke the meat. After the smoking is finished, you can have bacon to eat anytime."

Yu Tao asked curiously, "Why do we need to smoke it? Then it can be roasted. Can we eat it directly when we eat it?"

Shen Yu smiled and shook his head: "Of course not. When smoking meat with cypress branches, they don't use open flames, but the smoke from burning cypress branches."

"The cypress branches are rich in oil and the smoke they produce is fragrant. The bacon smoked with them has a special flavor."

"And smoking it like this not only makes the flavor more fragrant, but also prevents the cured and dried bacon from spoiling and being eaten by insects."

"If it is well preserved, it can be eaten until the middle of next spring."

After listening to this, Yu Tao rolled her eyes and asked, "Is it only pork that can be cured and smoked like this? Can other meats be cured and smoked?"

Shen Yu smiled and said, "Of course not. Chicken, duck, goose, rabbit, fish, all of these can be made into pickled and cured meats, which taste completely different from fresh meat."

Li and Jiang were busy with their work nearby. When they heard the two sisters talking, they suggested, "I think it's not difficult to pickle them, but you have to think about drying them every day."

"You have to dry these bacon every day anyway, so why not just pickle some of what you mentioned?"

"At the end of the year, the shops in the market will also close for the New Year, and only fresh pork will be kept. I'm afraid it won't be enough to eat during the first month of the year."

This sentence reminded Shen Yu that when she was in modern times, she could buy fresh vegetables and meat in the supermarket even on New Year's Day, and she had no habit of hoarding vegetables.

That's not possible here. On the 24th day of the twelfth lunar month, the government will seal the market and all shops on the street will be closed. We need to prepare more of these ingredients.

So for two consecutive days, Shen Yu and Yu Tao were both buying ingredients and pickling cured meat.

Not until several large basins were filled with pickled meats did Shen Yu stop eating, figuring that even if he only ate these pickled meats, it would be enough for the entire New Year period.

Start hanging the first batch of marinated pork belly on the constructed bamboo drying rack.

The weather has been nice these days and it has been sunny all the time.

Although the sun was bright but not very hot, the occasional north wind and sunny weather made the dried meat change every day.

This caused Yu Cheng to ask every day whether it was ready and when he could taste it.

In the afternoon when the first batch of bacon was prepared, Shen Yu also took some time to make pork skin jelly with pig's trotters.

Scorch the surface of the pig's trotters, rinse them and chop them into small pieces.

Boil them in water, wash them again with hot water, put them all in a large pot, add a few star anise, two or three bay leaves, a small piece of cinnamon, some salt, and simmer over low heat.

In order to make it easier to remove the bones, Shen Yu placed the meat on the large stove and simmered it over low heat all night.

When they opened it the next day, the pig's trotters had been stewed until the bones were gone.

You don't even need to use your hands to remove the bones. Just scoop it up with a colander and gently scrape it with bamboo chopsticks to remove the bones.

Remove the spices from the soup and press the removed meat with a colander to make it smaller.

Add some hot water to the large soup pot, put it on the stove and simmer for an hour, and the pork skin jelly is ready.

Shen Yu cooked more than a dozen pig's trotters at once and stewed most of the pot of thick and fragrant jelly soup.

Wait until it cools down a little, skim off the floating oil on the top, pour it into several large flat plates, place them on the table aside to let it cool, and after it solidifies, you can slice it and dip it in sauce.

In the evening, Shen Yu took a plate of frozen pork skin jelly, turned it upside down on the cutting board, and cut it into thin square slices.

Then make a sauce with mashed garlic, sweet soy sauce, balsamic vinegar and sesame oil and pour it on top.

At dinner, there was a dish of crystal clear pig’s trotter skin jelly that melted in your mouth on the table.

After tasting it, everyone felt that the pig's trotters cooked in this way looked good and tasted good.

Not only is it fresh and delicious, but after the pig's trotters are boiled and the bones are removed, you can't even tell what they looked like before. If you don't tell us what they are made of, no one would be able to tell what they are made of.

Li smiled and said, "If we make it like this and sell it, the ladies won't have to avoid people every time they come to order pig's trotters."

Shen Yu's eyes rolled and he immediately had an idea.

She smiled slyly and said, "Why not order some flower-shaped cutters, cut the jelly into flower shapes after it's made, and give it a nice name."

"Well, how about calling it 'Delicate Flower Jelly'?"

"It looks good, has a nice name, ladies can eat it openly."

"Delicate face and flower jelly." Li and the others repeated it twice.

Yu Tao clapped her hands and said, "This is a good name. Ladies will definitely like it when they hear it, and it will sound loud when you tell others about it."

Shen Yu smiled and said, "However, when you sell it in a restaurant, if a customer wants to buy it, you still have to tell the customer clearly what ingredients it is made of, don't be vague."

“If there are customers who really care about the ingredients, just don’t buy them.”

"If someone feels unclean after eating and feels uncomfortable, and comes to trouble the restaurant, that would be bad."

Li agreed, "Of course, we have to make it clear."

"But those who are willing to come to our restaurant to eat are all able to accept eating pork."

"I heard from the butcher that the amber meat in our restaurant has become famous recently because the county magistrate personally named it and praised its deliciousness. "

"Because of this amber meat, people are no longer so averse to pork. The pork sold in the shop has increased a lot compared to before."