Choose and prepare pork belly
Don’t let yourself be unaware of phrases like “Which meat is both lean and fatty, it’s pork belly.” Pork belly also has type 1 and type 2 – a secret that sellers rarely reveal to you.
Pork belly is the most delicious part of pork with layers of tender and flavorful meat and fat, which can be used to prepare many attractive dishes such as braised, stewed, fried, and salted dishes. It is often chosen by housewives to cook many delicious dishes for their families.
They all come from the pork belly, but pork belly is usually divided into 2 types: upper pork belly and lower pork belly. Differentiating and choosing the right type of meat will make your dishes more delicious, not quickly greasy, and not affect your health.
Pay attention to choose pork belly with natural, bright pink color, continuous meat layer, and thin skin. When pressed, it should have good elasticity. Avoid buying meat with color changes, strange odor, lack of elasticity, and softness, which means the meat has been kept for a long time and does not guarantee your health.
When you bring pork belly home, remove the hair, rub it with lemon and salt, then rinse it again. Salt and lemon help eliminate odors, while citric acid and vitamin C in lemon make the meat fresher and tastier. To remove impurities, you can blanch the meat in hot water at 70-80 degrees and then scoop it out and rinse it thoroughly.
Thorough and clean pre-processing of meat helps the meat to be cooked fragrant and make full use of the delicious broth for soup.
Supplementary ingredients for boiling meat
To enhance the flavor of the dish, before boiling the meat, put 1/2 onion or dried onion and clean ginger with the peel intact, pound it to extract the fragrant oil. Optionally, add a little white wine to eliminate odor. Add some seasonings such as soup powder, broth cubes, and pepper to make the meat and broth sweeter. Some people add lemongrass, but lemongrass has a strong smell and the broth may not be suitable for soup dishes.
Proper way to boil meat
Boil the meat with onions, ginger, and seasonings. When the water boils, reduce the heat and place the pork belly in to boil over low heat. Boiling the meat with hot water helps the meat tighten, retain nutrients, and make the meat sweeter. Boiling over low heat helps the meat cook slowly both on the outside and inside, and furthermore, the meat doesn’t become dry or pale, but remains lightly pink, beautiful like in a restaurant.
Depending on the size and thickness of the meat, the boiling time will vary, usually after 15 minutes, the meat will be cooked. Turn off the stove, cover the pot, and let the meat soak to absorb the water, making it juicy, tender, and fragrant, neither being red on the inside nor darkened on the outside.