Recipes for making corned beef at home. What to do if you over-salted meat or fish: all the ways to soak salted meat

Even experienced housewives can sometimes over-salt their favorite dish. You shouldn’t be upset, because everyone has the right to make a mistake. Moreover, this oversight is very easy to correct.

Correcting over-salted meat

There are many variations in cooking meat dishes. Housewives bake a whole piece of meat, fry it in pieces, and roll it into minced meat. How to correct over-salting depends on how you choose to prepare your dish.

If you cooked meat as a whole piece, there is a simple option to correct the mistake - prepare any sauce and cut the meat into pieces. Ideal for this situation sour cream sauce, you can also cook tomato, but you don’t need to salt it. You need to boil the pieces of meat in the sauce, and the liquid will absorb all the unnecessary salt.
If you cooked meat in pieces immediately in the sauce and over-salted it? Everything is simple here. Prepare more of the same sauce, but do not use salt when cooking. Add it to the dish. Or put the meat in new unsalted sauce and simmer.

Minced meat over-salted

Over-salted minced meat can seem like a disaster for the housewife. But don't panic. Here, the strategy for correcting the situation depends on at what stage of cooking you noticed something was wrong.

If over-salting is noticed on the most initial stage When the minced meat is raw, you can add more ingredients to it that will take on the salt.
If you wanted to fry cutlets and oversalted them, add more loaf or potatoes to the minced meat, which need to be grated on a fine grater. These ingredients absorb salt well. You can beat another egg into the minced meat or add life-saving sour cream.

As an option, add vegetables to the cutlets - cabbage, zucchini, mushrooms, carrots or any others you like.

If you notice over-salting in ready-made cutlets, pour boiling water over them and steam for 5-7 minutes. If you don’t want to steam it in water, you can do it in a sauce prepared without salt.
If cooking cutlets is not important, make meatballs from this minced meat. Add rice, having previously boiled it until half cooked and, of course, not salted. Moreover, meatballs require sauce, which can be salted just a little or not at all.

What to do with over-salted pilaf and stew

If you oversalt the stew with meat, the situation is simple to correct - add more vegetables to the dish, which will divide the amount of salt with other ingredients.
If you over-salted the pilaf, boil some unsalted rice and add it to the dish, heating the pilaf for a few minutes.

What to do with over-salted chicken

If you over-salted boiled chicken, you can cool it and use it to make salads, but it’s better to add a little salt to the salad. Or cut the chicken into pieces and simmer in the sauce. Ideal, as always, sour cream.
If you cooked the chicken in pieces, rinse the pieces in cold water and prepare an unsalted sauce for the fried pieces.
If you stewed chicken in sauce, prepare a new sauce for her with less or no salt.

Meat is prepared not only as a whole piece or by standard stewing of pieces. What to do in other situations with over-salted meat?

If you over-salted the kebab, serve it with more raw and, of course, unsalted vegetables and herbs. Place a bottle of sparkling wine or champagne on the table. The bubbles eliminate the taste of salt.
If you were preparing meat for smoking, prepare the same marinade, only without salt and leave the meat in it for several hours.
If you don’t have time to correct over-salted meat, serve it with a bland side dish that will even out the taste of salt.

What to do if you oversalt your fish

There is nothing complicated in cooking fish, but these dishes can also be over-salted. Fixing over-salted fish is as easy as fixing meat. You need to know a few secrets.

If fried fish is over-salted, sprinkle it with lemon juice. You can also add a little sugar.

Another secret recipe for over-salted fried fish- This is a pillow made of vegetables. You need to fry a large amount of carrots and onions in a frying pan. There is no need to salt the vegetables; sprinkle them with lemon juice and add sugar. If the salting is small, you can lightly add salt and pepper. Then place the fish on a layer of vegetables and cover it with a second layer of vegetables and heat for 4-6 minutes. Vegetables will absorb unnecessary salt, the fish will become tastier.

For over-salted fatty fish, such as salmon, mackerel or halibut, it is better to cut the lemon into slices and place it on the fish, sprinkle a little sugar on top.
If you over-salted fish stewed in sauce, prepare the same sauce, but not salty, and marinate the fish pieces in it.
If the already salted herring is too salty, you need to fill it with milk. Dairy products are excellent at removing unnecessary salt from foods.
Over-salted small fish You can fill it with water and change it periodically. After 2-3 hours, the salt will come out. If after testing you feel too salty, the procedure should be repeated.

If you think that you can fix over-salted soup by simply adding more unsalted water to it, then this method is best left as a last resort. Such seemingly simple manipulations can completely ruin the soup. There are several more cunning, but also simple ways to revive a dish.

If size allows freezer, it's great to have frozen unsalted broth for such occasions. It can be used to dilute an over-salted dish.
Another way is to put a bag of rice into the boiling broth. Rice absorbs salt well.
You can use refined sugar. Place a piece in a tablespoon; when the sugar melts, replace it with a new one. Try the broth.
Potatoes and pasta work the same way as rice. If your soup recipe doesn't include potatoes, add a few whole peeled potatoes to the broth. When the potatoes are cooked, remove them from the soup; the vegetable will absorb unnecessary salt.

To avoid over-salting situations, it is better to add salt to the dish before it is ready or before you intend to under-salt it. After all, adding salt to a finished dish is much easier than correcting over-salting. No wonder they say: “Under-salting is on the table, over-salting is on the back.”

Meat brine is a kind of marinade that helps soften even very tough meat. The main component of meat brine is acid. To obtain the necessary acidic environment, you can use vinegar, wine or fermented milk products. Another important component for brine is. What types of meat can be soaked in brine? How long is meat immersed in brine? Can I use salt instead of brine? Consider all options.

Meat in brine

Defrosting. Many experienced housewives combine defrosting meat with soaking in brine. This is appropriate when you need to cook meat that you forgot to defrost in the refrigerator first.

Time. One of simple ways There is a formula for calculating the time for soaking meat: 1 hour per half kilo of product.

Important

If you are caught by surprise and there is very little time to cook the meat, try to soak it in brine for at least half an hour. This procedure will definitely give the dish improved taste.

You can go the other way - find an alternative to baked meat and, to avoid wasting time on brine, cook.

Amount of brine. In order for the meat to be completely saturated with brine, it is necessary that the brine completely covers the meat. This applies not only to small pieces of meat, but also to the whole chicken that you are going to bake.
Very tough meat. require a special approach. So the game should be in the brine for at least 2 hours. However, it is not advisable to overdo it with the amount of time for the “brine bath”, since the meat may turn out to be too soft. Such meat can spoil the taste of the dish.
Salt instead of brine. Great not only for meat, but also for fish. Salting meat with kitchen salt mixed with spices has a similar effect to brine. Meat

Most often, in response to complaints about tough meat, you hear: “”. Of course, you can’t argue with Captain Obvious...

But what to do, and not always what you dreamed of? Or, even worse, a piece of the same beef looks great. Then we use a few tricks that will help overcome the toughness and make our dish juicy, soft and expressive.

There are only two ways to soften meat before cooking: coating and marinating. I'm not talking about beating a piece of meat with a hammer - that's not sporting.

1. Fruit marinade - with kiwi, papaya

From my own experience I can tell you how to marinate young beef steaks. I bought a decent piece of tenderloin and decided. But vague doubts haunted me: what if the beef turns out to be tough? And then, on the advice of our author and friend Sergei Milyanchikov, I marinated them for half an hour in a fruit marinade.

You will need: 2 kiwis, 0.5 tsp. salt, freshly ground white pepper, a little dried rosemary, 6 beef steaks.

Cooking: Peel the kiwi and grate on a coarse grater. Add salt and spices. Soak the steaks in the resulting marinade. Leave for half an hour. Then take it out, dry it with a napkin and fry it in a hot dry frying pan. The steaks turned out perfectly tender! Do the same with green papaya.

2. Marinade with dairy products

In my family, like everywhere else in the south, there is. The result was always a juicy and tender piece of meat. I now use the barbecue marinade on all meats that need to be tender: beef, chicken or turkey breast, pork tenderloin or lamb steaks.

You will need: 500 ml kefir, 500 ml mineral water with gas, a little salt, freshly ground black pepper, dry herbs to taste, 1 kg of any meat for frying.

Cooking: Mix kefir, water and spices. Place the meat in the marinade for 2-4 hours. Then take it out, dry it with a napkin and fry. It can be grilled, it can be in a frying pan, it can be on skewers.

3. Marinade with wine and mineral water

Also proven by generations of my family, as well as friends and acquaintances, a very simple marinade that preserves the tenderness of the meat. . If you marinate shish kebab, add onions. If you just have meat for frying in the form of steaks, cutlets and chops, you can do without it.

You will need: 500 ml dry white wine like “Rkatseteli”, 500 ml. sparkling mineral water, a little salt, freshly ground black pepper, dry herbs to taste, 3-4 onions, 1 kg of any meat.

Cooking: Mix wine, water and spices. Place the meat in the marinade for 3-5 hours.

4. Mustard and beer marinade

This method of making meat soft was suggested to me by the President of the public organization “Shashlyk League”, Valery Maltsev. There is only one minus - it’s a pity for “Krušovice”...

Required: ordinary mustard, 250 gr., dark beer 250 ml, freshly ground black pepper, meat - 1.5 kg.

Cooking: Cut the meat into portions. Spread generously with mustard. Sprinkle with pepper. Leave for 1 hour. Pour beer over the meat and leave for 2-3 hours. Fry by dredging in flour and sprinkling with salt water.

5. Soaking in vodka and soy sauce

Also a recipe I personally tested. When I did, I noticed that Chinese chefs often prepare meat for instant frying this way. And the meat always turns out deliciously soft. This marinade is especially suitable for chicken, duck and turkey breast.

You will need: soy sauce 7 tsp, vodka 70 g, meat 1 kg

Cooking: Cut the breast into long strips. Mix vodka with sauce and pour over meat. Cover the mixture and leave for 1-1.5 hours. Then remove, dry with a napkin and fry or simmer.

P.S. By the way, if you stew meat, add a little alcohol to it - wine, vodka, beer. Choose according to taste - this always makes the meat softer, and the alcohol levels evaporate without harm to the body.

Cooking corned beef at home is done as a last resort if it was produced but could not be sold or a thaw has set in. After all, corned beef is made only from beef. Pork is salted only for the preparation of hams, brisket and loin, but of course they also simply salt lard (lard). You can prepare three types of corned beef from beef - bone-in, pulpy and delicacy. First and second courses are prepared from corned beef, but only after soaking.

If you decide to cook corned beef at home, keep in mind that canning with salt, like any canning, requires compliance with the rules. Must be observed temperature regime when salting and storing corned beef. If the temperature is not maintained, the corned beef may spoil.

GOOD QUALITY CORNED BEEF AND DISHES FROM IT DIFFER SLIGHTLY FROM THOSE PREPARED FROM FRESH MEAT.

Identify well-cooked corned beef possible by appearance and smell. Good, dense, pinkish or light red when cut when lightly salted and dark red when salted heavily. The piece of corned beef is clean on top, without any mucus, has no extraneous unpleasant odors, the brine in the container is transparent, red, without foam.

But if the salting of meat was unsuccessful, then it can also be determined. The brine is cloudy, covered with a film of mold on top, and the smell immediately smells of rot and sourness. The removed piece of corned beef is flabby, soft, gray or Brown with an unpleasant odor. It is dangerous to eat such salted beef.

How to cook and what to cook from corned beef

First courses, cabbage soup, soup, and second courses are prepared from corned beef. Corned beef is used to prepare goulash, roast, solyanka, cutlets and zrazy. The main thing is to prepare the corned beef correctly.

Corned beef is well-salted meat, so before preparing cutlets or borscht from it, it must be soaked. Salt was used for cooking and corned beef contains from 6 to 12 percent. Therefore, it is soaked before use.

To do this, take a piece of meat out of the brine, rinse it well, peel it and put it in a basin or pan. If the pieces are large, they need to be cut into several parts. Pour cold water based on 5 kilograms of corned beef, a bucket of water, or per 1 kilogram, 2 liters of water.

Soak for at least a day, changing the water several times, replace the water for the first time after 2 hours, then increase the interval and if you change the water only 5 times, then the last time you can replace it 10 hours before the end of soaking. This will reduce the salt content in the meat to 2%, which will significantly improve the taste of corned beef.

If you were preparing delicious corned beef, then you don’t have to soak it or soak it for a very short time, about 16-17 hours. After cutting the meat into pieces of 50-70 grams, you can wash it and boil it immediately, adding five times more water than meat. for improvement palatability It is recommended to lightly smoke , and then boil. Then it can be cut into thin slices and served as a snack.

Corned beef is very tasty boiled with sauce

Soak the corned beef, place the whole piece in a saucepan and cover with cold water. The water will boil, skim off the foam, add parsley root, carrots, onion heads, garlic cloves. Cook corned beef over low heat for 2-2.5 hours. When the meat is cooked, remove it, cool slightly and cut into small slices. Pour over the boiled corned beef and serve as an independent appetizer or with a side dish.

Don't worry, this happens to everyone. Any person who regularly gets up to the stove, at some point in his life, feels an unpleasant chill on his back after tasting a freshly prepared dish: that’s it, I’ve over-salted it, how can I fix it?! The folk wisdom “if you’ve over-salted it, it means you’ve fallen in love” is encouraging, but only partly: what love, here you have to save dinner! Fortunately, you can save it: over-salted soup or meat is not a death sentence (unless, of course, you accidentally dumped half a pack of salt in it). Here are 5 solutions to help fix over-salted food.

Starch

Let's start with the method that almost everyone knows about. If you oversalt your soup or any other thin dish, from simple stews to vegetables in sauce, simply add a potato, peeled and cut into several pieces. During cooking, the potatoes will absorb some of the salt, and then they can be removed. Other products that contain starch work no worse than potatoes - pasta, rice, cereals, etc., and they can be placed in an improvised gauze bag so that you can then easily remove them (and, for example, use them as a side dish). However, you shouldn’t completely rely on this method - if you oversalt the soup, you can only partially correct it.

Acid

You can correct over-salted food by adding a little acid, be it lemon juice, or other acidic foods. Of course, it won't go away, but the acid will help mask it, adding another dimension of flavor to your dish. The most obvious example is over-salted fish, which can be improved by squeezing a little lemon on it. Of course, in the case of salted or smoked fish, this idea is on the surface, but lemon juice can cope no less successfully with over-salting fried or baked fish. In addition to fish, you can use acid to save baked or vegetable stew, as well as some meat dishes.

Fat

But not just anyone. The problem of over-salted food can be corrected by something that contains a creamy taste, say, cream, sour cream (which also has a sour taste), cottage cheese or, for example, avocado. This component not only blocks the perception of salt, but can also make the dish more interesting and tasty. For example, heavy cream will not only correct over-salted tomato sauce, but also make its taste richer and cream sauce for chicken or meat will surely be appreciated by everyone.

Water

The most obvious fighter against salt, water can help us in two ways. Firstly, you can soak over-salted foods in water, be it dried meat, sauerkraut, boiled chicken or boiled vegetables. Secondly, water can be added to the soup, which turned out to be so salty that even a potato cannot save it. However, you should resort to water only in extreme cases, if other methods have not justified themselves: although water will indeed quite effectively correct over-salted soup, the taste of this soup will leave much to be desired.

Common sense

My favorite ingredient in all recipes: use common sense and the results will pleasantly surprise you. Here are some tips on how to prevent over-salting or correct already over-salted food, which the mind suggests:

Adjust the recipe. Some foods, such as cheese, bacon, etc., already contain enough salt, so if you are preparing a dish that includes them, double your vigilance. You may need less salt than usual, or none at all.

Don't use iodized salt. Generally speaking, iodized salt is good for you and all that, but if you notice that you're starting to taste salt in your dishes, it might be because you've switched to iodized salt—sometimes we mistake the taste of salt for the taste of iodine.

Prepare twice as much. The only way that is guaranteed to correct over-salted food is to cook the same amount, but do not add salt, and then mix it with the over-salted portion. Alas, this fail-safe method is not suitable for everyone and not always.

And the most important thing - salt food while cooking, and not in a plate, and constantly taste: in this case, less salt will be used, and the taste of the finished dish will be more intense. Salt is necessary for our body, but like everything else, it is good in moderation. I wish you good luck in the fight against over-salted food!