Crystal meat is a name of Jiangsu Province. It's also called pig's hoof jelly. However, this crystal meat is very exquisite. It looks very good and tastes very tender and delicious.
1. Scrape and clean the pig's front hooves and arms, cut them one by one with a knife (not slanting), remove the bones (the hooves should be removed from the back hooves), place the skin flat on the chopping board, and poke some small holes on the lean meat with a iron cutting respectively.
2. Each one is evenly sprinkled with nitrate water, rubbed thoroughly with coarse salt, and then placed flat in the tank for pickling (with the change of climate, the amount of salt used and the time of pickling are also different.
3. In summer, only 125g salt is used for 6-8 hours; in winter, 95g salt is used for 7 days; in spring and autumn, 110g salt is used for 3-4 hours), and then it is soaked in cold water for 8 hours (no soaking in summer), the astringency is removed, the dirt on the skin is removed, and then it is rinsed with warm water.
4. Put the scallion and ginger into the cloth bag, the pepper and the big material into another cloth bag, and tie the mouth tightly. Put 5000g clear water, 400g crude salt and 1.5g alum into the large pot, boil it with high heat, and skim the froth.
5. Put the pig's hooves into the pot (with the hooves facing up, layer by layer, and the top layer facing down). After boiling, skim the froth. Put the onion and ginger bags and spice bags into the pot, add the Shaoxing wine, cover the bamboo operator, and put the cleaning weight on top to press the hooves.
6. Cook for about 1.5 hours (keep slightly boiling) with a small fire, turn the hoof up and down, turn the hoof skin all up, put it into the pot, and then cook until 90% rotten (about 3 hours) out of the pot, remove two cloth bags, and keep the soup.
7. Take 5 flat pots with a diameter of 40 cm and a height of 4 cm, put 2 pig's hooves (skin facing down) horizontally in each pot, press 5 pots together, cover 1 empty pot on top, move the pots one by one to the side of the pot after 20 minutes, scoop in the original soup, wash the oil brine in the pot and then decant into the pot.
8. Boil the brine in the pot, skim the floating oil, put 1.5g alum, add 250g clear water, and skim the floating oil. Then scoop the marinated soup into the hoof basin, flood the meat noodles, put them in the shade to cool and freeze (when it's hot, put them in the refrigerator to freeze after cooling thoroughly), and they will become crystal hooves. The remaining brine of boiled hooves is old brine, which can be kept for further use.