Content
- 1 Benefits of cold smoking chicken legs at home
- 2 Selection and preparation of meat
- 3 How to marinate cold smoked chicken legs
- 4 How to smoke chicken legs in a cold smoked smokehouse
- 5 Recipe for cold smoking chicken legs using a smoke generator
- 6 How long to smoke cold smoked legs
- 7 Storage rules
- 8 Conclusion
Cold smoked chicken legs can be cooked at home, but the process is longer and more complicated than the hot method. In the first case, the meat is exposed to smoke at lower temperatures, and the total cooking time takes more than one day.
Cold smoked chicken has a bright taste and aroma
Benefits of cold smoking chicken legs at home
Cooking homemade smoked meats has many advantages: fresh products are used, there are no harmful additives.
The cold method has a number of advantages over the hot one:
- More nutrients are retained in products.
- Smoked products are stored longer.
- Cold smoked legs are less harmful because they produce less carcinogenic substances than hot smoked ones.
Selection and preparation of meat
You can use chilled or frozen chicken pieces for smoking. When choosing legs in a store, first of all, you need to evaluate their appearance.
The skin should be solid, free of feathers and damage. The fat in the legs is slightly yellowish, but if it is dark, the purchase should be discarded.
If the places of the cuts are weathered, then the chicken has been stored for a long time, which is unacceptable for chilled products.
Another sign of stale meat is its characteristic smell. If the legs are rancid, they will smell even when frozen.
Before smoking, the chicken must be cleaned of excess skin and other unnecessary elements, then the skin must be singed.
It is better to choose chilled meat for smoking.
Then you need to pickle or pickle the legs for cold smoking. This process should last 1-3 days, since the cooking temperature is no more than 30 degrees. Traditional spices are salt, black and allspice, bay leaves, sugar. But you can use other seasonings to your taste: coriander, ginger, cinnamon, garlic, celery, marjoram, basil. Do not overuse flavored additives so as not to clog the taste of chicken.
How to marinate cold smoked chicken legs
Before smoking, the legs must be salted or pickled. There are dry and wet ways to prepare meat.
Classic dry marinade
This is the easiest way to prepare chicken for smoking.
You need to take a few pinches of rock salt and freshly ground black pepper. Mix the spices and rub the legs with this mixture. Put the chicken pieces under the oppression. You can use stones or a three-liter jar filled with water as a load. Leave to marinate for 1-3 days.
Marinade with paprika
For 2 kg of chicken legs, the following ingredients are required:
- salt - 50 g;
- dried garlic - to taste;
- a mixture of peppers to taste;
- ground paprika - to taste.
Cooking rules:
- Pour the spices into a small bowl and stir.
- Rub the legs with the mixture and place in a deep bowl. Refrigerate for at least 24 hours.
The classic wet recipe
The following ingredients are required for 1 liter of water:
- coarse salt - 1 tbsp. l .;
- black peppercorns - 6-8 pcs.;
- sugar - 1 tsp;
- bay leaf - 1 pc .;
- garlic - 1-2 cloves;
- table vinegar (9%) - 1 tbsp. l.
Traditional ingredients for the marinade are pepper, salt, bay leaf and garlic
Cooking rules:
- Pour water into a saucepan, put on high heat. Add salt.
- After boiling, pour in the vinegar, add bay leaves, garlic, peppercorns and sugar, reduce the flame.
- Boil the marinade for about 15 minutes, then remove from heat, let cool.
- Immerse the legs in the brine, cover with a plate or a circle, put the load on top. Marinate for 36-48 hours in the refrigerator.
Cold brine
For 5 legs, you will need the following ingredients:
- water - 1 l;
- table salt - 100 g;
- nitrite salt 20 g;
- granulated sugar - 5 g;
- bay leaf -3 pcs.;
- black peppercorns - 8 pcs.;
- allspice peas - 3 pcs.
Cooking rules:
- Send all the spices to a pot of water, stir until salt and sugar dissolve.
- Place the chicken legs in a suitable container, cover with brine and leave in the refrigerator for 48 hours. Turn over and massage several times during these two days.
How to smoke chicken legs in a cold smoked smokehouse
After marinating, the legs must be rinsed, wiped dry with paper towels. Then tie twine to the legs and lower them in boiling water for 1.5 minutes to soften the skin, then pull it out, let the water drain and hang to dry for 5 hours in a well-ventilated place.
Cold smoked chicken legs at home cannot be cooked in full compliance with the technology, so they may be unsafe. Because of this, most homemade recipes include a heat treatment step that follows salting or pickling.
When the legs are dry, they need to be laid out on a wire rack and placed in an oven preheated to 80 degrees. Cook until the temperature of the meat inside reaches 70 degrees. Then remove them from the oven and hang them overnight. Then you can proceed to further cooking.
To do this, you need a cold smoked smokehouse. The peculiarity of the device is that the chamber with products should not be heated, therefore it is located at a distance from the fire source and is connected to it by a chimney. Passing through it, the smoke has time to cool down.
For smoking, you need wood chips or twigs. For chicken, it is better to take alder or a mixture of fruit tree sawdust. They must first be soaked so that they work longer.
The readiness of the legs should be checked periodically.
Hang the chicken legs in a smoking cabinet. Fill the combustion chamber with firewood and light it up. When the coals are burned out, pour chips on them. Close the smoking chamber. Legs that have passed heat treatment in the oven after salting will be ready in 6-8 hours. If you start smoking immediately after drying the marinated legs, the cooking time will be 24 hours. The smokehouse must not be opened for the first 8 hours. The temperature must be monitored. Its optimal value is 27 degrees.
To check the readiness, you need to make an incision: if the meat is without juice, light, then you can extract it.
Then the cold-smoked smoked legs should be hung for several hours or immediately sent to the refrigerator to ripen for 1-2 days.
Recipe for cold smoking chicken legs using a smoke generator
The smoke generator is a compact smoking device that allows you to cook chicken legs even in an apartment.
Place the chicken legs in the food container. They can be hung on hooks or laid out on a grid. Pour wood chips into the smoke generator, connect to a power source. Through the chimney, the smoke will enter the smoking chamber with food.
How long to smoke cold smoked legs
It depends on the weight of the food and its preparation. The longer the marinating or pickling process, the shorter the cooking time. On average, you need to smoke cold smoked legs for a day.
Storage rules
Homemade cold-smoked chicken legs last longer than hot-smoked chicken legs because the meat is exposed to the cold smoke for a longer period of time. The product can be kept in the common compartment of the refrigerator for up to 7 days, provided the package is tight.
To increase the shelf life, you can put the food in the freezer, but after defrosting, the quality of the meat deteriorates. To preserve it as much as possible, you need to wrap each leg in edible paper and put in a bag intended for freezing. So you can save the chicken for up to 30 days.
Conclusion
Cold smoked chicken legs can be cooked on your own. The main thing is to have a good smokehouse and strictly follow the technology.
