Baked bacon is a hearty and tasty food known for its so-called “long calories”. A small piece of the product allows you not to experience hunger for a long time. This food always helps out in the field conditions of nutrition and when there is a lack of time for cooking. Some recipes turn animal fat not just into a practical snack, but into a real delicacy – a full-fledged second dish for an everyday and festive table.
How to cook lard for baking
For a truly delicious, nutritious hot dish, choose pork fat with good layers of meat (pork brisket for baking). High-quality fat should be white, without the slightest yellowish tinge; the skin is even and rather thin, without bristles. To make the bacon unusually fragrant, soft and juicy, first beat it lightly with a wooden or metal hammer through the cling film. After that, saturate the raw materials with spices and salt.
Lard in small doses benefits the body. The arachidonic acid contained in its composition takes part in cholesterol metabolism. However, you should not abuse the product due to its high calorie content (724 kcal per 100 g)
The composition of the spicy mixture can be as follows (per 1 kg of lard):
– garlic (2-3 cloves); – table salt of coarse grinding (4 tablespoons); – paprika (4 teaspoons); – bay leaves (2 pcs.); – dill, parsley, basil (1 branch each).
Rinse a piece of the beaten off podcherevka, dry with paper towels and rub on all sides with table salt and paprika. The seasoning should cover the fat and skin in an even layer. Place the food tightly in an enamel or glass dish, cover it with thin circles of garlic and crumbled bay leaves. Press down on top with a wooden circle and a suitable press, place on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator and keep there overnight.
Remove bacon from refrigerator and warm to room temperature. Scrape off the white skin with a knife. Place the chopped greens and the spice / seasoning mixture scraped from the skins on top of the fat. Roll up the roll and tie tightly with nylon thread, then wrap it in foil. Place on a baking sheet moistened with a little water and oiled with vegetable oil. The total cooking time for lard in the oven is 1 hour at + 180 ° C. After the first 30 minutes of cooking the food, slightly open the foil on top and keep the dish in the oven for another 30 minutes until it is lightly browned.
Baked bacon can be used as a stand-alone hot dish with a side dish for vegetables and fresh herbs. In addition, it can be added to soups: cabbage soup, borscht, pea soup, pickle, hodgepodge
You can cook lard in a special baking sleeve. Put a roll in it and pour in a little water and the juice that the fat and meat gave when salting in the refrigerator. When the liquid covers the bottom of the sleeve by 0,5 cm, add 2 whole bay leaves and a handful or two of onion husks. The roll will be cooked at a temperature of + 180 ° C for only half an hour.