God obviously loves us.
Bacon does sound good this morning :)
Why do you cure it? Is it sick?
How come this isn’t about bacon flavored vodka?
Like most drugs, bacon is more effective and faster acting when absorbed by the lungs rather through the stomach. My only question is where do I get a bacon bong?
Visual Drool response.
We have 25lbs of this King Vanity Phat PNW Salmon Run 2009
Address:http://community-2.webtv.net/YaquinaBay/KingVanityPhatPNW/
in a sweet orange/maple brine and will be going into the Big Chief smoker today.
That thin stuff is not bacon
This is bacon - and good cold, on some real rye with real mustard
http://www.andysdeli.com/shop/popup_image.php?pID=156&osCsid=c277e9284540b7f17bba6e4f8abeba9b
The advantage of curing your own is you can give it a REAL smoke flavor by smoking it over hickory rather than that fake injection that they do. I have done it many times
Evil Man! I am trying to loose weight! YUM!!! :D)
FR: where religious wars break out even on the bacon threads.
Hooray for bacon! It is so yummy!
I have no idea why I pinged you to this glock... honest!
bump
Dark Chocolate Covered Bacon and Bacon Wrapped Hotdogs equals YUMMY./Just Asking - seoul62......
Maple Cured Bacon
One 5 lb. piece of pork belly, rind on
2 ounces kosher salt - 1/4 C.
1/4 C. pure Maple syrup
2 t. pink salt (a curing salt, not the Hawain stuff)
1/4 C. Maple sugar (pricey, worth it)
Obtain pork belly from a meat market, butcher, Mexican or Asian market. You may need to mail order pink salt.
Mix the dry cure ingredients together, then add syrup. Rub the mixture over the meat and put it skin side down in a plastic bag slightly bigger than the meat and put it in the refrigerator for a week. Turn it over every day.
Remove the meat from the bag and rinse clean, then pat dry. Put it back into the refrigerator on a rack over a baking sheet and let it dry for 12 to 24 hours.
Smoke until it reaches an internal temperature of 150 degrees. Remove the skin while the meat is hot. (Discard skin, or cut into pieces and save for flavoring soups, sauces, or stews) Let the bacon cool, then wrap in plastic and refrigerate or freeze until ready to use.
If you don’t have a smoker, use a Weber grill over slow coals or bake the meat at low heat in the oven.
Basic Dry Cure from Charcuterie
1 pound/450 grams kosher salt (2 cups Morton's coarse kosher salt)
8 ounces/225 grams sugar (about 1 cup)
2 ounces/50 grams pink salt (10 teaspoons)
Combine and mix till pink salt is uniformly distributed. Store indefinitely in air-tight container. Pink salt, or curing salt, is a salt containing a small amount of sodium nitrite; it’s dyed pink to prevent accidental consumption.
To make pancetta, salt the belly liberally with the basic dry cure; it should have a uniform coating on it, almost as if you'd dredged the belly. Put the belly in a two-gallon zip-top bag and add brown sugar (a quarter cup or so should do it), garlic, peppercorns (preferably toasted and cracked in a mortar or beneath a saute pan), bay leaf, and if you happen to have them on hand, coriander seeds (also toasted and cracked), thyme, juniper berries. Rub this stuff around on the belly, seal the bag, and store it in the refrigerator for a week, turning it and redistributing the cure at least every other day.
After 7 days (9 if it's a very fat piece, more than 2.5 inches), remove it from the bag, rinse all the cure off it, cut a hole in one corner and hang it to dry for a week. And there is your pancetta (unsmoked bacon). If left out indefinitely it will turn into jerky. Refrigerate for up to three weeks or freeze well wrapped for 6 months. It holds up very well vacuum sealed and frozen. I use an ordinary Rival Seal-A-Meal vacuum sealer designed for home use.
So, so good. I took the skin off some of it (to use when cooking beans or making stock). But the first thing I did was to wrap two thick slabs in foil and roast them for a couple hours at 250 degrees to make them tender. I chilled them till I was ready to cook them: I sauteed them till they were crispy on both sides, then cut them into bite sized pieces and served them as an hors d'oeuvres when some friends came over for cocktail. The slow roasting in an enclosed (therefore moist) environment, followed by searing, is a great technique, results in meltingly tender bite with the crispy exterior (and no loss of flavor to a braising liquid). No end to what you can pare with this, with scallops, with peas, with braised greens, beneath a poached egg, or even as the featured ingredient in what would be a most excellent BLT! No excuses, if you like to cook, for not curing your own pancetta.
Buy a duck breast and pack it in kosher salt and refrigerate it for a day and then rinse it off and enfold it in cheesecloth (or anything that can breath, a clean handkerchief will do in a pinch) and let it dry for a week on a rack on the counter or dangling from a string—then, slice it and taste. Suddenly you will see. Buy a side of salmon—no, buy a piece of salmon—pack it in an equal mixture of salt and sugar and some citrus zest or fennel, wrap it in foil for 24 hours, rinse it and taste a paper thin slice. A cooking miracle.