At home, smoked lard can be made in several ways. The easiest and fastest is using liquid smoke. If there is no smokehouse, an airfryer will help out: its design allows you to cook smoked meats.
Lard needs to be able to choose the right one. For smoking, the one that is cut from the back or sides of the carcass is best suited. The layers of meat should be thin, the optimal thickness of the pieces is 2.5 cm. For smoking lard, it is advisable to choose a dry method of salting it.
For dry salting of lard, you need an enamel pan. It is not recommended to use containers made of aluminum or stainless steel.
Before you start salting, the bacon must be kept in water at room temperature. Lard is soaked for 9-10 hours. After that, the skin will become soft, and the fat itself will become tender. After taking out the product, it is dried for 30-40 minutes.
Before salting bacon, you need to take care of the presence of oppression. Containers filled with water are most often used as cargo.
Experienced housewives know that lard will never be too salty: it will take in just as much salt as required. Therefore, you should not save this bulk product. For salting, you will need black ground pepper, lavrushka, spices (for amateurs). The salt should be coarse.
The fat is cut into narrow strips (7-10 cm). The pieces must be long enough to fit in the pot. Prepare a mixture of salt and pepper, rub each piece thoroughly from all sides. A 1.5 cm layer of salt is poured onto the bottom of the pan and the bacon is laid out so that it does not come into contact with the walls of the container, but is at least 1 cm away from them. When the first layer is laid, all the cracks are covered with salt, put a few bay leaves … Then the process is repeated.
To make oppression, take a plate slightly smaller than the pan, turn it over, cover the bacon and put the load. Salting time - 10 days. During this period, the pieces must be turned over, pouring the resulting brine over them. When the lard is ready, it is taken out, cleaned of salt, dried and smoked.
The fastest way to make smoked meats is with liquid smoke. To do this, take 1 liter of water for 1 kg of bacon, pour it into a saucepan with high sides. Add 3 tbsp. l. liquid smoke (per 1 kg of bacon), 2-3 handfuls of onion husks, peeled and sliced garlic, black peppercorns. Mix everything well and lay pieces of bacon.
Put the pan on the stove, bring to a boil. Cook for 40-50 minutes over low heat. Then the bacon is taken out and left for half an hour to dry. Then rub it with red ground pepper and put it in a cool place.
Lard is also smoked in the airfryer. To do this, you need peppercorns, garlic, 1 sachet of gelatin (based on 1, 5-2 kg of bacon), liquid smoke. This method can be used to smoke both salted and fresh lard. In the latter case, it is cut into small pieces, rubbed with salt and kept in a cool place for 2 days. 12 hours before the scheduled smoking, each piece of bacon is covered with liquid smoke.
Before starting smoking, gelatin is completely dissolved in a small amount of water, red ground pepper is added and bacon is immersed in gelatin for several minutes. Sawdust is poured into the airfryer and lightly sprinkled with water. Pieces of bacon are spread on the wire rack and smoked at 65 ° C for 2-3 hours.
