When we read this Salon article about making bacon, we immediately started Googling for recipes. How could we not? Imagine - your very own bacon!!
Think about it - slow Sunday breakfasts around the kitchen table with cornmeal blueberry pancakes, hot tea, and your very own maple bacon. Heaven. The Salon article made it sound so easy. After all, the writers made their bacon in a Brooklyn apartment. If they can do it, so can we, right?
We found this very informative resource on how to make bacon. Anyway, after much research, here's what we understand. Basically, to make bacon, you need to start with a pig belly. You can buy them online via Heritage Foods. Actually, you should probably start by making sure you have enough room to store the pork belly. Pigs are big animals, and according to the Salon article, the pork bellies were 2 feet long.
Next, there are two different methods of curing; dry and wet. Dry curing involves rubbing the meat with salt, saltpetre, sugar, and pepper, and storing the meat in a cool, dry place. Dry curing takes 5 to 6 days; the meat is removed from its storage container daily and the seasonings are re-rubbed into it, and any liquid that has collected in the container is poured out. There's a more detailed explanation of dry curing at this page.
Wet curing means the meat is immersed in a liquid brine for 3-4 days. Meat cured using the wet method requires less salt.
Next step is the brine or rub. Both must contain sugar and salt, but after these two main ingredients, the other added ingredients are your choice; maple, brown sugar, molasses, pepper, honey, etc.
After the meat has cured for the sufficient length of time, it needs to be removed from the brine and rinsed off. The next step is smoking the meat to lock in the flavors. You can smoke it in a smoker or on a barbecue grill over a bed of wet hickory. If neither of these is available to you, you can roast it in a 200-degree oven for a few hours instead. Once it cools, you can slice it thin and wrap it for storage in the freezer.
Let us know if you try it!
(Image: Bon Appetit)
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I'm actually raising some future bacon and I had been thinking of finding some more recipes than just the one I got from my grandparents.
I made bacon in a class once - it's a bit more complicated than I can do in my teeny apartment on a regular basis. Try the Charcuterie book by Ruhlman for bacon recipes.
When I lived in China, I noticed that as the weather cooled down in the fall, people often had pork bellies curing on their balconies. It's a stronger flavor but you use very little in your stir fries - I've never tried it since I live in a warm climate but for all of you cold people out there - you should try it - it's good!
I made my first batch recently. My flickr set of the process is here.
It was much easier than I thought it would be. For me, the hardest part was getting my hands on the pork belly. I talked to my local butcher and ended up having to order a whole [10-pound] belly. I "baconized" 4 pounds and put the other 6 into the freezer for future experiments.
I thought mine came out great. I used Michael Ruhlman's method (from Charcuterie). It's actually on the NY Times web site - search for "ruhlman" and "bacon".
I made some recently based on a charcuterie class i took at Whole Foods (taught by one of the guys at thepauperedchef.com). I think i was a little nervous, because i left the pork belly in the salt rub for the longer end of the range in the recipe and it turned out REALLY salty. Like inedible salty. A little frustrating, because i took it out earlier in the process, fried some up, and it was giving up a TON of water, so i decided that it probably needed to sit a while longer, and then out wound up with a salt lick. I guess i'll have to keep on trying!
Try your hopefully local Asian/Ethnic market- pork belly (in manageable amounts) is easy to find at ours. I think they have bigger cuts at the butcher counter, but smaller ones are even in the ready-to-go meat section.
Now I know what our next project with it will be!
*sigh* My husband makes it all the time from the Charcuterie book. The smoked bacon he makes all the time is pretty good. But I quite dislike the pancetta from the same book. He hasn't taken the hint that I keep buying it...