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.

We Did It!

Rosemary bacon recipe from the previous post:  OUTSTANDING.

A little on the salty side. Next time I will give it a two-minute soak in cold water after rinsing off the cure, to leach out some of the salt. I will edit the recipe in the previous post to reflect that change.

However; there is a clean hint of rosemary flavor throughout the bacon, reminiscent of a good herb-crusted pork roast, and it is very bacony bacon (not ham-like, as the Alton Brown recipe). It tastes very fresh and porky. Scott remarked on the distinct flavor of freshness. It is unmistakeable. No comparison to mass produced chem-bacon, at all. We’re all done with that fakey stuff. Wow.

Also, does anybody know what I should do with these smoked porkbelly skins that I stripped off the bacons after smoking?

I’ll just freeze them for stew enrichment, until I get some good ideas, I guess.

NEXT RECIPE, ON SMOKER NOW:

Savory Bacon, from Ruhlman’s Charcuterie

one 5-lb slab pork belly

4 garlic cloves, minced (I substituted 1/2 a small onion because Scott is allergic to garlic)

2 tsp. pink nitrite salt (cure #1)

3 Tbsp. kosher salt

2 Tbsp. dark brown sugar

2 Tbsp. coarsely ground black pepper

4 crumbled bay leaves

4 or 5 sprigs thyme

Place belly in 3-gallon ziploc bag. Mix all remaining ingredients together, then rub thoroughly all over both sides of belly to coat. Push as much air out of the bag as you can, seal tightly, and place bag in fridge for seven days. The salts will draw liquid out of the meat. This is your curing brine. Turn the bag over every other day so a different side can sit in the brine for a while.

Remove belly from cure, rinse cure off well, and pat dry (you may wish to soak it in cold water for a minute first, to draw out some excess salt). Belly can be refrigerated, covered, for three days if you wish.

Roast (or smoke) at 200 degrees on a rack until 150 degrees internal temp. While fat is hot, slice off rind; save for stocks and stews.

Cool, wrap, and refrigerate.

I’ll review this cure recipe in the next post, with photos.

Bacono Numero Dos

OK, so first a review of the Alton Brown bacon recipe, which is an odd molasses, apple cider, and brine concoction.

This got me something tasty and sweet, but not really bacony. It tastes like a mild ham, actually. And the high sugar content makes the strips scorch in odd spots while the remainder is still virtually uncooked.

I confess that I did not follow the instructions exactly. I added a teaspoon of pink nitrite salt, halved the recipe (the belly was still totally swamped in brine), and instead of cold-smoking for a whole day, we hot smoked for a couple hours to 150 degrees.

I fried some up this morning in strips, and some in little cubes, or lardons. It did taste better after being wrapped in the fridge for a few days.

The lardons were nicer because it was easier to deep-fry them in a puddle of grease and have them cook more evenly. So, I will use up the rest of that recipe over time as lardons tossed onto salads and things like that. One pleasant thing about that recipe is that it was not very salty bacon, even though you use a ton of salt in that brine. But we won’t be using this recipe again.

Frankly, it’s expensive to make. Whole cups of salt and sugar, a whole jar of molasses, a whole half gallon of cider…you put a cheap piece of pork in it for three days and then throw it all down the sink. Not worth it.

Next Recipe:

I rinsed off my rosemary-maple cured pork belly and have it under a fan right now to form the pellicle. I sliced off a little raggy edge and fried it up.

This one tastes really good. Very bacony, and the rosemary flavor is strong (but that’s probably because it’s an edge piece). Can’t really taste any maple flavor. Probably didn’t use enough.

Some people stop now with just the cure, but we’re going to smoke it. I have a good feeling about this one. Because it’s good even without smoke.

Rosemary Bacon

3 – 5 lb. slab of pork belly

5 Tbsp. kosher salt

1 and 1/2 tsp. nitrite salt (cure #1)

3 Tbsp. sugar

2 Tbsp. maple syrup

1 tsp. fresh ground black pepper

1 Tbsp. ground fresh rosemary needles (I just peeled these off live rosemary branches and put them in the spice grinder with the peppercorns)

Set the pork slab in a 2 or 3 gallon ziploc bag. Mix remaining ingredients, and rub thoroughly and vigorously all over the pork belly, both sides. Don’t worry if it doesn’t stick so well on the skin side.

Push as much air as possible out of the bag (or use a vacuum sealer) and set in refrigerator for one week. Liquid will be drawn from the meat. This is now your brine. Turn the bag over every other day so each side can sit in the liquid periodically.

After one week, remove from brine and rinse thoroughly. If you like less-salty bacon, soak the slab in a pan of cold water for a couple minutes. Set on a rack, pat dry, and let sit under a fan for an hour or two (or in the fridge for a few hours) to form a dry sticky pellicle on the surface of the meat. Smoke at around 200 degrees to an internal temperature of 150F.

We’re using Perfect Mix pellets for the smoke. Just set the raw belly into the grill now. Will let you know how it turned out.