At all times an integral feature of any holiday table in Russia, was brawn.
It’s truly a royal dish, which is also quite tasty and nutritious, you can use a variety of any meat with the addition of various of its components and components.
Aspic from pork is really nourishing cold appetizer, traditionally occupying an honorable place among other dishes, from any culinary specialist, a true connoisseur of taste, or from a simple layman who loves a tasty meal.
General principles for cooking pork jelly
In order to prepare such a cold appetizer, like brawn, you need to know and correctly use the general principles of preparation of this dish:
• In order for the jelly to stiffen and turn out to have a rich consistency, for its preparation it is necessary to use pork legs with pretreated claws (you can also add the knuckle and skin).
• Before cooking jelly its meat components is better to subject to soaking. Since this procedure will make the skin softer and it will be easier to clean it in the future. It is better to leave meat-drenched components for the night, but you can get by with three hours.
• It is necessary to drain the first water, after boiling the jelly. This action will further provide transparency to the broth and prevent the possible appearance of greasy taste in the prepared dish.
• Salt and add spices to the jelly should be no earlier than 3-4 hours of cooking, in order to avoid over-salting.
• You need to be able to choose the right temperature for gradual but complete solidification of the brawn. For this ideal middle shelf of the refrigerator.
Recipes and features of cooking, such a cold snack, like brawn jelly
Recipe 1. Pork jelly (classic)
Ingredients:
• Knuckle or leg (pork) - 1 pc.
• Pig legs - 2 pcs.
• Onion (medium) - 2 pcs.
• Carrot - 1 pc.
• Bay leaf - 5 leaves.
• Pepper (black peas).
• Garlic - an amateur.
Preparation:
Pens and pig feet must be thoroughly cleaned, washed and cut into pieces of medium size, filled with water and set aside for a couple of hours (changing the water several times).
Further, literally every piece of meat needs to be washed, folded into a saucepan and add water, so that it covers the meat components with 3-4 fingers on top.
Put the pot on the stove by selecting a large fire. As soon as the foam is formed again, it must be removed, or water should be drained, while washing all the existing meat components, refill them with 3-4 fingers with water and bring the jelly to the boil.
After the broth begins to boil, you need to minimize the heat and add carrots, onions and garlic (whole) to the pan.
In order for the broth to turn out to be golden in color, the onion can be put into it directly in the husk, by adding bay leaves and black peppercorns to taste.
After a few hours, the broth should be salted, taking about a spoonful of salt. You also need to remember that during the cooking of jelly foam periodically need to be removed. Boil the jelly should be about 7-8 hours on low heat, without boiling strongly and covered with a lid.
As soon as a film was formed on the surface, and the meat began to separate from the bones, it would mean one thing — aspic was cooked!
After you can start cutting chops. Bones with meat should be removed from the pan using skimmers, strain the broth using a double layer of gauze.
Next, the meat must be separated from the bones directly with your hands, helping yourself with a small knife, and preferably two. When there is not a single bone in the pulp, it needs to be cut and laid out on plates.
On top of the meat you need to crumble the garlic and pour it with broth aside. After a while the meat can be mixed with a spoon, so that the meat is evenly placed on it. Or vice versa, without stirring, put in the refrigerator. Since, by choosing this option, you will get jelly from above, as well as meat from below.
Jelly can be decorated on top with figures of carrots, green sprigs or according to taste other vegetables.
Recipe 2. Pork jelly (supplemented with chicken legs)
Ingredients:
• Head (pork).
• Chicken legs (chicken legs) - 2 pcs.
• Bulbs - 2 pcs.
• Carrot - 3 pcs.
• Garlic - 1 head.
• Bay leaf - 3 pcs.
• Pepper, salt - according to taste.
Preparation:
Clean the pig's head, rinse, cut off the ears and leave water for half a day (occasionally changing the water). Further, the head is cut across, so as not to damage the skull itself, and again washed, placed in a bucket and filled with water.
A bucket with a pig's head is put on the fire and boiled, for 6 hours, alternately removing foam from the broth, in order to obtain a further transparent consistency. Cooking takes place on a small fire (if necessary, water can be added during the process).
After 2 hours, the bulbs are placed in a bucket (incised), 3-3.5 tbsp. spoons of salt. At the end of the cooking process, the onion is removed.
After another couple of hours added chicken legs (chicken), bay leaves, pepper (peas). Separately, take a mold for jelly or some other dish on the bottom of a pre-cooked and sliced carrot, sprinkled with garlic.
We take the cooked head and other meat components out of the bucket and disassemble it. From the head, the brain, skin and others are removed through, too, fat components. The cut meat is laid out in a mold over garlic, poured in strained broth and put in the refrigerator for the night, for a gradual but complete solidification.
Recipe 3. Pork roast (with the addition of beef and eggs)
Ingredients:
• Pork legs - 2 pcs.
• A piece of lean pulp 1000 gr.
• Beef - 1000 gr. • Onion - 2 pcs.
• Carrot -2 pcs.
• Lavrushka, salt, pepper - according to taste.
• Eggs - 2 pcs.
• Parsley curly.
Preparation:
All meat components are thoroughly cleaned, washed and placed in a saucepan. On top of 20 cm meat components are poured, with water and all this is brought to a boil.
After the further broth boils, the froth is removed from it. Vegetables are added - onions, carrots (not cut as a whole), salt, pepper, and laurel.
The fire under the saucepan with the jelly is reduced and the cooking process begins for 6 hours under a covered lid.
When the meat is easily separated from the bones, it should be removed, finely chopped, while removing all unnecessary components, such as cartilage, skin.
At the bottom, in certain molds for jelly or other dishes, you must lay out the meat, decorate the top with sliced rounds of boiled eggs and leaves of curly parsley, pour strained broth.
Now jelly from pork can be removed in the fridge for freezing.
Recipe 4. Pork jelly (in a slow cooker)
Ingredients:
• Two pig feet (small size).
• Pulp of beef on the bone - 1500 gr.
• Water - 1L 200 ml.
• Carrot (large size) - 1 pc.
• Lavrushka - 3 leaves.
• Salt, pepper (peas) - at the discretion.
• Garlic - 1 head.
Preparation:
The legs are cleaned with a knife, washed and poured with cool water for 6 hours (this is done to eliminate a certain smell).
Then the legs are washed again and placed in the crock-pot with beef and peeled whole carrots.
Pork jelly is filled with spices, salted and filled with water. Cooking of pork jelly in a slow cooker is carried out for 6 hours on the selected program - “stewing”.
After the resulting broth is filtered through a sieve or two-layer gauze. Meat spread in a separate dish and proceed to its analysis, separating from the bones and cartilage. Then clean the meat laid out in plates, add chopped garlic, chopped carrots and pour the ready broth.
The pork jelly prepared in this way is retracted into the refrigerator for further solidification, for 8 hours.
Recipe 5. Pork jelly (with the addition of gelatin)
Ingredients:
• Pork pulp - 500 gr.
• Legs (pork) - 4 pcs.
• Onion - 1 pc.
• Carrot - 1 pc.
• Garlic - 1 head.
• Gelatin - 25 gr.
• Pepper (peas), salt, bay leaf - at the discretion.
Preparation:
Before cleaning, the pig's feet should be poured, for about an hour or three, with water, in order to facilitate further the process of peeling.
After that, the legs are thoroughly cleaned, filled with water and put on fire. In the process of cooking, foam formed is removed from the surface of the broth using a perforated spoon or skimmer.
After boiling, it is necessary to reduce the heat to a minimum and continue cooking the pig's feet for another four hours, periodically removing the fat from the surface.
Separately for jelly prepare gelatin. A glass of broth is drawn from the pan and cooled. Gelatin is poured over them.
Next, you need to go to the preparation of vegetables. Onions and carrots are peeled. Onions are crushed, and carrots are cut into cubes. All this develops into a broth, add meat, pepper, laurel and salt.
All components are cooked for another two hours, without adding water. After the meat and bones are removed from the broth, the cook can start, finally, disassembling the jelly. The cut meat, without bones and cartilage, is laid back into the broth, while gelatin, garlic is added to the same place, and everything is brought to a boil.
The hot consistency of pork jelly is poured into plates and put into the refrigerator for further solidification.
Recipe 6. Jellied pork (beef legs and rocking meat)
Ingredients:
• Pork legs - 4 pcs.
• Beef legs - 2 pcs.
• Rocking beef (beef). • Onion - 2 pcs.
• Carrot - 2 pcs.
• Garlic.
• Pepper (black peas), laurel, salt.
• Parsley.
Preparation:
Feet need to burn, chop, clean and wash. Then all of the above components with the addition of rocking meat, peeled vegetables and spices to put in a decent pan or bucket and pour water.
After boiling, reduce the heat, cover the container with a lid and cook all the components for 8 hours. In the middle of the cooking process it is necessary to salt the jelly.
Next, strain the broth, lay out the meat and disassemble from the bones and cartilage. Sliced meat spread on plates and cups, pour garlic, carrots, sliced onions and greens on top of it.
All components pour broth (you can mix, for a uniform distribution of fat) and put in the refrigerator for uniform solidification.
Pork jelly - small tricks and useful tips
• In order for the pork jelly to turn out beautiful amber in color, it must be cooked over low heat to prevent the process of boiling and boiling and the appearance of a white color in the cold snack.
• It is better to disassemble meat for brawn, without using a meat grinder or combine, so any cook will not miss a single bone or cartilage.
• It is not necessary to immediately remove the layer of fat from the jelly. Since it is precisely this that prevents the occurrence of the winding spots in this delicious cold snack.
