The online voice that eating bacon is easy to cause cancer has been very high. Some even talked about bacon's discoloration and completely rejected it, as if bacon was synonymous with cancer. Is it really that terrible to eat bacon? According to my personal experience, this is not the case. Everything needs to be split in two. When I used to live in a bungalow, every year after beginning of winter, I would smoke some smoked fish and bacon in iron drums, and save them for eating slowly. Plus gifts from relatives in rural areas, the specific amount I want to eat in a year is estimated to be at least 10 kilograms.

Method for making & lt& lt& lt& lt bacon

As the name implies, bacon is smoked, which is a delicious food with Hunan characteristics. Every household in rural Hunan will smoke bacon.

I have already introduced the curing method of bacon in Wukong's answer, and I will share it with you today.

Pork belly fresh pork 2500 grams.

Ingredients: salt100g, a handful of pepper, 50g of liquor.

Some dry wood, 400g charcoal, 200g dried tangerine peel and a bag of chaff.

Production steps

first step

Pickling. Wash the pork belly, control the moisture, change the knife and cut it into strips with a width of 5-7 cm, add salt, white wine and pepper for 2 days, and then turn it over for 2-3 days to make the pork belly dark red and gray;

Second step

Dry in the sun. Punch a hole in the upper end of pork belly with a bamboo stick or iron wire, pass it through with thick cotton thread, and tie it to a bamboo pole to dry. It takes about 3-4 days to dry in sunny weather. If you are drying on your balcony and there is no bamboo pole, tie the cotton thread to a hanger and dry it until it is half dry.

Third step

It's smoking There are many ways to smoke. In rural areas, some are smoked directly with kitchen firewood stoves, and some are dried in front of the house. Build a temporary stove with a big iron bucket or brick, put an old iron washbasin under it, light the firewood and burn it into charcoal. Then add some ready-made charcoal, dried tangerine peel and chaff to make it produce thick smoke. Iron bars or bamboo poles are placed on iron drums or brick stoves to make barbecue.

Fourth step

Air drying. Bacon is hung above the stove with an iron hook. On the one hand, let it dry naturally, on the other hand, soak the usually cooked cigarettes for several months repeatedly, so that the smoked bacon is rich in flavor from the outside to the inside and delicious on earth.

Step five

Blanch the water. Smoked bacon has a long storage time. In order to prevent deterioration and mildew, it is generally salty, so it is necessary to blanch before eating to remove some salt. There are also two functions, one is to reduce the nitrite content, and the other is to soften the dry and hard bacon.

Method for making & lt& lt& lt& lt air-dried bacon

The production method of air-dried bacon is relatively simple, and the taste is not as good as smoked bacon.

2500 grams of fresh pork belly with ingredients.

Ingredients: 50g salt, 5 tablespoons soy sauce, spiced powder 1 packet, 50g liquor, 50g pepper 1 bar, and 50g sugar.

Production steps

first step

Pickling. The taste of air-dried bacon mainly depends on curing, in other words, curing is the key to the taste of air-dried bacon. Wash the pork belly, control the moisture, change the knife and cut it into strips with a width of 5-7 cm, add salt, white wine, sugar, spiced powder, soy sauce and pepper to taste, rub it on the pork belly, marinate for 2 days, and then turn it upside down for 2-3 days until the pork belly becomes dark red and gray;

Second step

Dry in the sun. Punch a hole in one end of the pork belly with a bamboo stick or iron wire, pass it through with thick cotton thread, and tie it to a bamboo pole to dry. It takes about 2~ days in sunny days, and it can be eaten after drying in the sun until it is half dry and half wet. Because it is directly dried, the speed of dehydration and degreasing is slower than that of bacon. If you like dry food, you can continue to dry it in a ventilated and cool place for a while.

Third step

Storage. The storage time of air-dried bacon is shorter than that of smoked bacon, especially the air-dried bacon is short and humid, and it is easy to grow mildew at high temperature, so it should be put in the refrigerator for refrigeration. If eaten for a long time, it should be frozen in the refrigerator and thawed when eaten.

& lt& lt& lt& lt which is more harmful to health, air-dried bacon or smoked bacon? & lt& lt& lt& lt

Air-dried bacon is mainly flavored with pickled seasonings, while smoked bacon is mainly flavored with smoked fuel. Everyone's doubts about the carcinogenic risk of bacon come from the fact that bacon contains nitrite, which is a carcinogen. Smoked bacon is more salty than air-dried bacon. After high temperature smoking, the overall nitrite content is higher than air-dried bacon. As for which is more harmful to health, this question is not absolute. Many rural people in Hunan eat bacon all their lives, and no one gets cancer because of eating bacon.

My father-in-law is 87 years old this year. He likes smoked bacon best and specializes in fat meat. He smokes dozens of pounds of bacon every year, and the beams of the stove are full in winter. Nowadays, my father-in-law is not seriously ill except for being thin. He can not only take care of himself, but also feed chickens and grow vegetables. He won't let him do it. He's still worried about you. Besides, my uncle likes bacon very much. Although he died of lung cancer, it had nothing to do with bacon, because he smoked too much.

In fact, foods that are more harmful than bacon often lurk around us, but we often despise them because we don't understand them, such as water quality problems. The tap water in the community where I live is very hard. Every time I boil water, I can see the white spots on the bottom of the pot. Drinking such water for a long time is really worrying, because a lot of water is pumped into our stomachs every day. If the water is unqualified, its harm to our health cannot be underestimated. Bacon is nothing compared with it.

& lt& lt& lt& lt warm little notice

①

Smoked bacon is also a cold smoked bacon. After pickling, it is directly hung above the firewood stove, so that the cold smoke from cooking can be slowly smoked out, making the smoked bacon look black and covered with a thick layer of oil smoke. Scrape the surface with a knife, and then wash it with boiled rice. The red and white color of bacon comes out and tastes particularly good.

(2) Smoked bacon must pay attention to fire prevention, especially when smoked with oil. When oil drips into the brazier, it is easy to produce an open flame. There have been many cases in which smoked bacon burned down houses in rural areas. It is best to have someone at home when you are in a hurry to smoke.

③

The types of fuels used to smoke bacon have a direct impact on the flavor of bacon, and the smell in the fuel will penetrate into bacon, such as teak, cypress and waxberry, which are all good fuels for smoking bacon, and some people will add some rice to enhance the flavor.

④ The curing spices of air-dried bacon are preferably powdered, such as anise cinnamon, which can better adhere to the surface of pork belly. The specific types and proportions of spices can be adjusted according to your own preferences.

Buy ready-made spiced powder, because it has been stored for a long time, or the quality of spices is uneven and smells tasteless, it is recommended to grind it yourself.

& lt& lt& lt& lt Which is more harmful to health, air-dried bacon or smoked bacon?

★ How to identify authentic Hunan bacon?

To tell the truth, it is difficult to buy authentic Hunan smoked bacon in the shopping malls outside, and the bacon in the shopping malls is very beautiful. Authentic smoked bacon in Hunan has a dark appearance and even looks a little dirty. Smell it with your nose and find psychological beauty after washing. Authentic bacon in Hunan is generally dry, and lean meat is chewy, salty and memorable. Fat meat is fat but not greasy. It melts in the mouth and has a heavy flavor.

★ When does bacon usually start to smoke?

Bacon is smoked after beginning of winter, and the weather is getting colder, so fresh meat won't go bad and stink in a few days. After beginning of spring, bacon should not be smoked. Besides the rising temperature, there is more rain. The bacon that has just been smoked in winter has low temperature, high water content, loose meat quality and poor taste, which will be better after a period of time.

★ How can we reduce nitrite in bacon?

The content of nitrite in fresh smoked bacon is the highest and will decrease with time. After a month of smoking and drying in the shade, nitrite will be greatly reduced. In addition, the content of nitrite can also be reduced by boiling in water for 10 minute before eating. If the above two methods are combined, it should be very safe.