Food & Receipts

Enhance the flavor and tenderness of boiled meat with this secret ingredient: Say goodbye to dry, bland meat by adding this special ingredient

Many people think that just boiling meat with salt and plain water is enough. In reality, you need to add one more ingredient to make the meat tender and flavorful, without drying it out.

Administrator

27 December, 2023

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Boiled meat is a simple yet enticing dish that often appears in family meals. Boiled pork can be enjoyed with salt and lemon, chili fish sauce, shrimp paste sauce, or fermented shrimp paste…all of which are delicious. Apart from being eaten with rice, boiled meat is also used in many other dishes such as rice paper rolls or salads, combined with various vegetables.

Although boiling meat might seem straightforward, many women still encounter issues with the meat smelling unpleasant or lacking flavor. To overcome this problem, you can refer to the following tips.

Before cooking, it’s recommended to rinse the meat with diluted saltwater to eliminate bacteria and reduce any unpleasant odors. To make the boiled meat delicious, choose pieces of meat that contain both lean meat and fat. Meat from the leg, pork belly…usually tastes better when boiled compared to loin or butt meat. You need to prepare the following ingredients for boiled meat: Vinegar or lemon, a small piece of ginger, a dried shallot, soft twine or butcher’s twine.

Using soft twine or butcher’s twine to tightly tie the meat will ensure a round and beautiful shape when cut. Tie the meat along the length of the meat to create a round shape. After boiling, the meat will be sliced horizontally. The tighter you tie the meat, the better it will retain its shape. If using twine, choose white twine without any color.

Tying pork leg tightly before boiling will help achieve a round and beautiful shape when sliced. As for pork belly, you can put it directly into the pot without tying. If you do not have twine or do not want to use it, you can completely skip this step and put the meat directly into the pot to boil.

To ensure tasty and odorless meat, you can boil the meat twice. First, place the meat in a pot, fill it with water until it overflows, and boil for 2-3 minutes. After that, add a few drops of vinegar (or lemon juice) to the pot to eliminate any unpleasant odors and make the meat appear whiter.

Next, discard the water, rinse the meat with warm water, and proceed to boil it a second time.

Prepare a pot of boiling water, add the meat, a few pinches of salt, some thin slices of ginger, and a peeled dried shallot.

Salt helps evenly boil the water, ginger helps eliminate any unpleasant odors, and the shallot gives the boiled meat a more flavorful taste.

To boil the meat, place the pot over medium heat and cook until the meat is tender. To check if the meat is cooked, you can use a fork to pierce the meat. If pink juice comes out, continue boiling for about 5 minutes. If the meat is cooked, the fork will easily penetrate through without any pink juice.

After the meat is cooked, take it out and immediately immerse it in a bowl of cold water (you can add a few ice cubes). The cold water will help firm up the meat, maintain its shape, prevent it from drying out, and make it more visually appealing. Once the meat has cooled slightly, you can slice it thinly for immediate use.

However, to evenly and beautifully slice the meat, it is recommended to store it in the refrigerator’s cool compartment for a few hours. Wait for the meat to cool completely, then tightly wrap it with plastic wrap and place it in the refrigerator’s cool compartment for a few hours. By doing so, the meat will become firmer and much easier to slice into thin pieces.