Posted on 10/16/2010 9:07:52 AM PDT by JoeProBono
—Order five pounds of fresh pork belly from your grocery store, the pork guy at your farmers market, or from a local butcher shop.
—Buy a box of 2-gallon zip-top bags if you don’t have a container big enough to hold the belly.
—Mix the following together in a small bowl:
2 ounces (1/4 cup Morton or Diamond Crystal coarse kosher) salt
2 teaspoons pink curing salt #1 (I use this DQ Cure from Butcher-Packer, $2)
4 tablespoons coarsely ground black pepper
4 bay leaves, crumbled
1 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 cup brown sugar or honey or maple syrup
5 cloves of garlic, smashed with the flat side of a chef’s knife
2 tablespoons juniper berries, lightly crushed (optional)
5 to 10 sprigs fresh thyme (optional)
—Put your belly in the zip-top bag or on a sheet tray or in a plastic container. Rub the salt and spice mixture all over the belly. Close the bag or cover it with plastic wrap, and stick it in the refrigerator for seven days (get your hands in there and give the spices another good rubbing around midway through).
—After seven days, take it out of the fridge, rinse off all the seasonings under cold water and pat it dry.
—Put it on a sheet tray and put it in the oven (put it on a rack on a sheet tray if you have one) and turn the oven on to 200 degrees F. (if you want to preheat the oven, that’s fine, too). Leave it in the oven for 90 minutes (or, if you want to measure the internal temperature, until it reaches 150 degrees F.).
—Let it cool and refrigerate it until you’re ready to cook it. But I know. You won’t be able to wait. So cut off a piece and cook it. Taste it, savor it. Congratulations! It’s bacon!
Notes: If you don’t have five pounds of belly, either guesstimate salt based on the above or, if you have a scale, multiply the weight of the belly in ounces or grams by .025 and that’s how many ounces or grams of salt you should use.
If for any reason you find your bacon to be too salty to eat (it happens, especially if you measure your salt by sight, which I sometimes do), simply blanch the bacon and dump the water before sautéing it.
Pink curing salt means “sodium nitrite,” not Himalayan pink salt. It’s what’s responsible for the bright color and piquant bacony flavor. You don’t have to use it, but your bacon will turn brown/gray when cooked (you’re cooking it well done, after all), and will taste like pleasantly seasoned spare ribs, porky rather than bacony.
If you have a smoker or a grill, you can smoke the bacon (strictly speaking, it needs to have the pink salt in the cure if you’re going to smoke because, in rare instances, botulism bacteria from spores on the garlic could grow; pink salt eliminates this possibility; but I never worry about this, you’re going to cook it again in any case).
You can also, instead of roasting it or smoking, hang it to dry, in the manner of pancetta.
There are plenty of reasons not to cure bacon: fear should not be among them.
Bacon is life itself: embrace it!
*gasp* I’m in love!
Do I really have to cure the bacon before sliping it to a muslim?
I’m going to have to find that.
I know what I am going to demand from my wife and children before too long, a pledge to bring me bacon on my deathbed.
No, of course not.
mmmmmmmmmm...... Bacon !
I barely use any sugar in my coffee, basically one spoonful in the thermos.
I save my sugar intake for cookies, Blue Bell, and pie. :)
Without the sugar you can taste the salt if you use too much.
I also put small (maybe cover half a dime one layer) of oriental 5 spice.
The secret is like in French cooking "not so much that you can taste it, but just enough to have an beneficial alliterative effect."
Bacon Chocolate Crunch Bar / Recipe courtesy of chefs Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo of LA' Animal Restaurant
Melt over low heat 4 lb Gianduja chocolate, lb peanut butter, 8 oz praline paste. Stir in 4 cups feuillitine (or chopped-up cornflakes) 1½ tsp. sea salt. Spread on large sheetpan; refrigerate until solid. Cut chocolate bar into strips. Using a crème brûlée torch, quickly heat the top of the chocolate strips to soften. Cover top with bacon.
Knew that would get your attention.
Sounds like good stuff.
I’ll let someone else attempt the coffee flavored bacon.
Stuff brewed the way I described it can be quite brutal.
Of course, there was that one maxwellhouse that was like frightened water even afer being recirced.
Feel free to tinker with The Death Sludge as it is called, let me know what manner of construct you manage to devise from it.
Next up we need coffee flavored bacon.
That same recipe was on Lifehacker this AM.....:o)
Here......
http://lifehacker.com/5665589/make-high+quality-bacon-by-curing-your-own
Leading to this......
http://ruhlman.com/2010/10/home-cured-bacon-2.html
I stay up on my bacon recipes in case I have a Islamazazi move into the neighborhood.
stay safe !
I don’t know where you got that recipe but it has a few flaws. I have been curing and smoking my own bacon for years.
>>rinse off all the seasonings under cold water and pat it dry.<<
That will leave the bacon way to salty for most tastes. It should be soaked in clean fresh water for half an hour then change the water and soak again for 20 minutes or so.
>>or, if you want to measure the internal temperature, until it reaches 150 degrees F<<
150 degrees internal temperature is a cooked product. Remember that the salt cures the bacon and cooking isn’t necessary until you want to eat it. The salt actually preserves the bacon. Bacon is cold smoked using a temperature of between 80 and 100 degrees but no higher.
I have a larger smoker which handles about 10 slabs of bacon but a smaller, and one I have built and used myself before building the larger one, can be built very cheaply. I used a single hotplate purchased for Wal Mart for about $10. build or find a wooden box about 2ft x 2ft x 3ft. and set it with the tall end up and put a plywood door on it. Set the hotplate in the bottom and put a cast iron pan on the hotplate. Put some hooks in the top of the box for hanging the bacon. Put wood chips in the pan. (hickory, apple, or whatever you choose. I use apple)
Put a cord through one end of the slab of bacon and hang it on the hook. Turn the hotplate to high and the chips will begin to smoke. Smoke for about 10 hours or so.
I put an indoor/outdoor thermometer with the sensor inside the box to watch the temperature. If it gets too hot open the door slightly. (I put a sliding adjustment off an old grill on the door.)
Am I the only one who sees irony in using kosher salt to cure bacon? (Is the bacon sick?)
Bacon is an almost unique food, because it possesses six ingredient types of umami “savory”, which elicits an addictive neurochemical response in the brain. This is in addition to also stimulating the other tastes of salty, sweet, and ideally a slight bitterness.
The one missing flavor is sourness, which is why bacon goes exceptionally well with sour foods, and is also complementary to bitter flavors as well.
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