Very Nice. UPDATED

UPDATE 12/27/2012:  People in my family got chunks of my home-cured bacon among their Christmas treats a couple of days ago.

This evening, a few of us got together again to see little sis & her new baby before they get on the plane tomorrow morning.

We were just sitting around chatting. Then out of the blue,

Older sister:  (suddenly sits up) Oh my God! Laurie, can I just tell you that homemade bacon was the best bacon I ever had in my life.

Me: You tried it! You got the rosemary one. Wasn’t it nice?

Older sister: It tasted, like, REAL. It made me think, the stuff we get from the store, is like, junky.

Me: I KNOW, RIGHT. So fresh, you know? And it was easy! I’ll make more!

Us together:  SQUEEEEE!!!

…Then, since we were in a home in which other people’s bacon gifts had been previously dispensed but not consumed yet, she went into their refrigerator and sliced up small amounts of the other people’s bacons and fried them up so everybody could try them together.

It was a very validating and entertaining family experience.

There were compliments on the other homemade treats I made this year- cookies and almond brittle and chocolate truffles, too- but the bacon appreciation really hit home for me.

Because, you know. Meat.

Original post below.

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Bacon recipe in previous post.

Yet another reason I want Ruhlman’s Charcuterie book for my very own. I’ll get around to picking one up eventually, when I get the other foodie things on my wish list. This is the best of the bacon recipe trio we made.

I (again) wished I had soaked this piece of cured belly for a minute or two in cold water to leach out more salt before smoking, but I really can’t complain. It is delicious. It has less of a ‘fresh’ porky taste as my rosemary recipe, but the deepness of the pepper and onion flavor more than make up for it. Pastrami-like bacon, is how I would describe it. The result lives up to it’s name, Savory Bacon. Lip-smacking, rich, tasty stuff.

The basic elements of this recipe are going to be our go-to mix for a long time to come.

So now I have eight nice chunks of homemade bacon to give away for Christmas, and none for us to keep. We would have had more, but for that Alton Brown recipe that didn’t turn out.

Guess we need to buy another great big pork belly. Boo-hoo.

Woe.

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