1. The first pot of brine needs to boil some old soup, and the cooking of old soup does not need to be complicated. The simpler the food, the better. Calculated by 2 kg (single kg) of soup cooked in one pot: star anise: 2g, cinnamon: 15g, Amomum tsaoko: 1g, Kaempferia Kaempferia: 2g, clove: 2g, fennel: 1g, angelica dahurica: 15g, white button: 15g, Amomum Tsao: 15g, dried tangerine peel: 1g, licorice: 2g, Amomum villosum: 1g, geranium: 1g. Then add 3 kg of water to the pot (about 2 kg after boiling), add the boiled pork leg bones and hens, add ginger and cooking wine, boil over high fire, skim the floating foam and turn to low fire for 4-5 hours, then filter out all the bones and meat residue with a sieve after boiling, and leave the old soup for later use.
3, stir-fry the sugar color. Prepare the materials according to the proportion of 5g rock sugar, 5g boiling water and 5g oil. First, heat the wok, add 5g oil, pour in the rock sugar, stir the rock sugar over medium heat and gradually turn yellow, and continue to keep the medium heat until the sugar color starts to bubble, then turn to low heat and keep stirring the sugar color, and then add the prepared boiling water when the sugar color turns purplish red, and cook for 5 minutes.
4. adjust brine. According to the standard of 5 grams of spices for every 5 kilograms of soup stock. 2 grams of spices, 1 grams of ginger, 4 grams of salt, 5 grams of chicken essence, 3 grams of crystal sugar, 1 grams of pepper, 5 grams of pepper, and a proper amount of sugar (added in batches according to the required color) are added to the soup stock and boiled for 3 minutes, thus obtaining the original brine.
5. Braised pork. The brine prepared according to the above ratio can be marinated directly, just because the new brine lacks fragrance and bittern oil, so the first marinated pork can be marinated with more fragrant and umami ingredients such as pork, chicken, trotters, chicken feet and pigskin, and the proportion of fat meat can be increased to marinate more bittern oil to increase the fragrance of the brine.
6. At this point, a pot of new brine has been made. Under normal circumstances, the dishes marinated in the first pot of new brine are slightly spicy, which is normal. After all, it is new brine, which contains nothing but spices, and the brine lacks a complex alcohol flavor. After marinating meat for three times, the fragrance of brine is very normal and mellow.
7. Precautions for new brine: the cooking time of the old soup should be in place, and the heat should be controlled in a small fire. The so-called small fire clear soup, big fire thick soup. We don't need thick soup for pot-stewed vegetables, so we can cook them slowly with a small fire. The frying of sugar color is the key in the end. The frying is tender, and the sugar color is sweet. Adding less color in brine is not good, and adding more brine is sweet. When the sugar color is over-fried, the brine is bitter and the color is black, resulting in the dark color of the finished braised pork. Soak the spices in warm water for half an hour before putting them into the pot, so as to remove the odor and impurities of the spices, and at the same time, wash off the melanin in the spices, so as to avoid the impurities such as dust and melanin of the spices being brought into the brine, resulting in blackening of the brine. It is best to add the sugar color in batches. Don't adjust the color in place at one time, otherwise the final product will be very dark. The best coloring time of braised pork is after 7 minutes cooking, so in the process of braised pork, observe the color of braised pork from time to time. If you feel that the color is not satisfactory, add a little more and finally add it to a satisfactory color. Use medium fire to marinate fat meat ingredients, in order to make fat meat get as much oil as possible, so as to avoid the final finished product being greasy; Braised lean meat ingredients should be simmered, in order to minimize the dehydration speed of the ingredients, so as to avoid the final product eating dry and firewood.
8. Finally, after the first pot of brine is done, it needs to be well maintained and preserved. The longer the brine is, the more fragrant it will be, but it is not just to marinate the meat blindly without adding new water. When the brine loses more, the water should be properly replenished to avoid the sticky and burnt situation caused by the long brine marinating. If the brine is not used at ordinary times, it needs to be boiled once a day or stored in the refrigerator and freezer.