When it comes to pig elbows, I think many friends will drool, but do you know? Pig elbow is divided into "front elbow" and "back elbow", and there is a big difference. It is not as simple as you think to make a plate of fat but not greasy, soft and delicious pork elbow. Many friends made a mistake when buying it. No wonder the pork elbow tastes bad. At present, the price of pig elbow is quite expensive. If you buy it wrong, it will be a waste of money and affect your appetite.
Is the front elbow better or the back elbow better?
As we all know, pig elbow is pig leg meat. Like pig's trotters, pig's elbows are divided into front and back. There is a great difference between pig's front elbow and back elbow, both in meat taste and cooking method.
Front elbow (front hoof)
Generally speaking, the pig's front elbow tastes better than the back elbow. Because the pig is a lazy animal, it usually exerts its force on the front elbow and less on the back elbow. Therefore, the meat of the front elbow is relatively alive, with more lean meat, more tendons and heavy gum. It is often cooked with skin and tastes fat but not greasy. It is more suitable for roasting, sauce, stewing and marinating, such as braised elbow and sauced elbow.
Rear elbow (rear hoof)
Compared with the front elbow, the pig's back elbow is worse in taste. Because the hind legs of pigs usually don't exert too much force, the activity is small, so the meat on the back elbow will be fatter, with less lean meat, big bones, old and tough skin, large connective tissue content and poor quality. The back elbow is not suitable for braising in soy sauce, and the elbow made will not be chewy. If friends buy back the back elbow, they can use it to make soup and meatballs, which taste good, or separate the fat from the lean meat and cook lard with the fat. In terms of price, the back elbow will be cheaper. In our hotel, we always use the back elbow to make more profits.
In short, in comparison, the pig's front elbow will be better, the taste is fat but not greasy, the lean meat is more, the bone mass is smaller, and the methods are more diverse. Of course, some people only like to eat the pig's back elbow with more fat, thinking that it tastes more fragrant and economical, so follow their personal preferences, as the saying goes, "carrots and vegetables have their own tastes."
How to distinguish the front elbow from the back elbow?
Just now, Brother Qi shared the differences between the pig's front elbow and the pig's back elbow and how to do it. When buying pig elbows, friends should know whether to buy front elbows or back elbows. Then another question comes again. How can we distinguish the front elbow from the back elbow? With understanding, many friends can't tell the difference between before and after.
In fact, this is not difficult at all. Brother Qi has summed up three distinguishing skills for you. Let's take a look!
One is to distinguish from the head:
When many friends buy pig elbows, they will choose the big one and think it is the best. In fact, from the point of view of size, the front elbow of a pig is generally smaller than the back elbow, so you can't just choose the big one. At the same time, most of the front elbows are lean meat, with thin skin and many tendons, and little fat, and the bones are thinner than the back elbows. The back elbow not only looks bigger, but also has relatively thick skin, fat and thick bones.
The second is to distinguish between gouges where whole pieces were missing:
hind shank
This is the obvious difference between the front elbow and the back elbow. Generally, there is no gap in the hook on the front elbow of the pig, but there will be an obvious gap in the back elbow, which was left by hanging the pig during slaughter.
The third is to distinguish from the cross section:
Cross section cut by front elbow
In addition, we can also observe whether the bones above the pig elbow are cut off. Because the pig's front elbow can't be cut directly along the joint with a knife, the bone can only be cut off from the middle, so the bone section is not smooth. The pig's back elbow can be cut directly along the joint with a knife, so the bone section of the back elbow is complete and smooth in comparison.
The posterior elbow joint is intact.
The following picture can visually see the difference between the front and rear elbows.
Characteristics of high quality pig elbow
According to the above three selection skills, we can finally distinguish between "front elbow" and "back elbow". When friends buy pig elbows in the future, don't let the butcher recommend them to you. It is true that they can buy the right ones, and no one dares to fool you. At the same time, in order to buy fresh and high-quality pork elbows, you need to pay attention to the following two points.
First, the high-quality fresh pork elbow skin is white and red, full of luster, slightly transparent, and the cartilage is white as jade. If you see the pig's elbow on sale, the fat surface is dirty, a large area of yellow or black spots have appeared, and the lean meat part is black. This is a stale and deteriorated pig's elbow and should not be purchased.
Second, a good pig elbow is tight and elastic. If you press it gently with your hand, it will recover quickly. If you find mucus seeping from the joint between cartilage and hard bone of pig elbow, it means that pig elbow is not fresh, so don't buy it.
The bones in the front elbow are small and lean.
How to preserve fresh pig elbows?
If you want to keep the fresh pig's elbow for a long time, you can first remove the bones from the pig's elbow, coat some yellow wine on the surface, wrap it with plastic wrap, and put it in the freezer of the refrigerator, and naturally thaw it when eating.
Delicious eating method of pig elbow in winter
Home-cooked sauce elbow
Ingredients: pork elbow, fragrant leaves, stewed meat package, tsaoko, aniseed, nutmeg, yellow sauce, cinnamon, onion, ginger, soy sauce, salt, rock sugar and soup stock.
1. Pour a proper amount of water into the pot, put the elbow into the pot with cold water, add the onion, ginger slices and cooking wine, skim the blood foam after the water boils, and take it out.
2. Put the elbow in a pressure cooker, and add the soup stock, soy sauce, stewed meat package, yellow sauce, onion, ginger slices, aniseed, cinnamon, fragrant leaves, Amomum tsaoko, nutmeg, rock sugar and salt.
3. Cover the lid and press for half an hour. After turning off the fire, continue to soak the elbow in the pot and take it out when it is warm.