Anyue Salted Pork

Anyue Salted Pork

　　Anyue Salted Pork is a famous specialty of Anyue County in Ziyang City, Sichuan Province. Product features: clean appearance, neat cuts, firm muscle, no sticky residue on the surface, bright red color on the cross-section, slightly yellow fat, and the inherent flavor of salted pork.

　　Salted pork is cured with salt and is also known as cured meat, salt meat, or pickled meat. Anyue Salted Pork was a provincial premium product in Sichuan Province's 1982 salted meat evaluation, and when cooked, it has a golden color and leaves a lingering fragrance.

　　How to Make Anyue Salted Pork:

　　1. Selecting Ingredients: The raw materials for salted pork are divided into bone-in and boneless types. For bone-in salted pork, different parts are processed into whole slices, small blocks, or trotters and hocks. Whole slices refer to the section with the head, tail, and legs removed; small blocks are rectangular pieces weighing around 2.5 kilograms each (trotters and hocks refer to pig’s legs with hooves attached).

　　2. Trimming: Remove broken meat, blood stains, lymph nodes, and excess fat. To allow the salt to penetrate, make cuts every 2–6 cm on the meat pieces, with a depth of about one-third of the meat thickness. The size and depth of the cuts depend on the ambient temperature and the thickness of the meat. If the temperature is above 15°C, make larger and more cuts to speed up the curing process; if below 15°C, make smaller and fewer cuts. 　

　　3. Salting: Generally, salting is done in three stages—initial salting, main salting, and final salting. Initial salting involves evenly coating the surface of the raw meat with a layer of salt. The next day, apply the main salt evenly, stuff an appropriate amount of fresh salt into the cuts, and stack the pieces neatly. After 4–5 days, turn the pile over, swap the positions of the upper and lower layers, and sprinkle additional fresh salt as needed. About 7 days after the final salting, turn the pile again and continue applying a small amount of salt. The entire salting process takes approximately 25 days to complete.

　　4. Setting the Salt: Salted pork can be stored in a cold storage at -5°C or submerged in a 24–25°C saltwater brine. If the brine becomes cloudy or develops an off smell, it indicates spoilage, and the brine must be boiled again before reuse. Process Tip: Since frying is required, prepare 1000 grams of cooking oil (approximately 200 grams will actually be used).