Be rash - make your own bacon
THE final straw came during my regular Sunday morning fry-up.
The bacon rashers in the pan were oozing unwholesome looking white goo and I knew what it was, an unsavoury mix of water and chemicals.
It had not been expensive bacon. One of the reasons cheap bacon in supermarkets is cheap is that producers pump it with water to make it weigh more.
So it got me wondering whether I could do better. And I can.
What I hadn't realised was how easy it is to make your own unsmoked dry cured streaky and get a taste of how bacon used to be.
All you need is some pork belly, a handful of salt, some sugar, and few herbs or spices for the 'cure,' a Tupperware box to hold your meat, enough space in the fridge and five minutes a day for three or four days.And you're making bacon!
I still go to my butcher, who wasn't responsible for that gooey bacon, to start me off. I ask for about a kilo of pork belly (to fit the box), boned out.
For each kilo of bacon you need of 3oz salt (I use cooking salt but if you worry about additives rock or sea salt is going to cost you more) and the same of sugar. White sugar gives a lighter colour to brown but if you are using brown go for a proper one like Demerara.
The salt and sugar preserve the meat.
The spices are up to you. I usually add a finely chopped bay leaf, generous twists of freshly ground black pepper, two or three allspice berries and sometimes a little ground fennel.
Mix it all together, take a handful and massage it into the meat on all sides, skin included, making sure you get it under any meat flaps.
Put it in the box, loosely fit the lid and pop in the fridge. Sometimes I use my cellar although in summer it's a little too warm.
Twenty four hours later inspect the box. The meat will be sitting in water. Drain, rub in more cure and repeat.
On day three there will be less water to drain off but rub in whatever you have left of your mix (I keep this in a separate Tupperware box) and return to the fridge.
By the fourth day you have bacon. Rinse it free of salt and soak it in fresh water for a couple of hours then drain.
Bacon should be left to dry for a week but not many of us have cool, flyless larders so I cheat by wrapping it in a clean tea towel for a day and leaving it somewhere cool (usually the fridge).
To eat cut as thinly as possible with a carving knife. If it's still too thick put the rashers between sheets of greaseproof paper and flatten with a rolling pin.
This bacon, a little bit like Italian pancetta, will be saltier than you are used to and won't be pink - that's produced by saltpetre and is purely cosmetic - but it will taste far better. And you'll have fun experimenting with the cures.
Cut it as and when needed. It will keep happily in the fridge, wrapped loosely in greaseproof paper, for a couple of weeks.
Making your own bacon won't be any cheaper but it shouldn't cost you more. Keep altering the cure and using different breeds until you get your favourite streaky.
And have fun!
What do you think? Add your comment below.
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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