Makin' Bacon!

Short Version: We made bacon.

Long Version: Two years ago while in New Orleans for the ELCA National Youth Gathering, we went to Chef Donald Link’s Cochon restaurant, which was incredible. Next door to the restaurant was Cochon Butcher, where they make a great deal of really awesome products, most of the porcine variety. It too was incredible, so much so that  I brought back a whole cooler full of tasso,  andouille, boudin, and pâté.

    Last year Chef Link came out with an award winning cookbook,  Real Cajun.  The award was the James Beard Award, which is like the Pulitzer Prize of Food. I got the book for Christmas, and one day in March Alice discovered that it had a recipe for bacon.  She suggested we should make our own. After about a week doing some research, we decided to give it a try, although our version would be the “wet” version endorsed by Alton Brown rather than Chef Link’s “dry” cure.  We also decided that we would use “cold” (70-80 degrees) smoke rather than “hot” (140 degrees).

7 lbs of pork belly from Caughman's Meats

Marinating in the brine for 4 days

Drying out so the pellicles can form.  Pellicles are kind of thin skin or membrane.  Think of the skin on Jello or pudding if you don't cover it in the fridge.  The smoke sticks to the pellicles. Without adequate pellicles, you get sooty meat.

The Hardware (Yes that's duct tape, but HIGH TEMPERATURE duct tape!)

The Hot Box

The Cold Box

The Smoke Pipe

Smokin'!

After 5 hours.

    It took less than a hour to put all this together. The boxes I got from work, and they were perfect, but it was a very windy day, so we really couldn't see how much smoke was being produced.  Next time I'll shoot for a calm day and hopefully be able to judge the smokiness better.  We thought the computer fan would work well, but it ate 9 volt batteries very quickly, so we wound up with a 4 inch personal fan plugged in. 

    How'd it turn out?  It was very good! It was not near as salty as regular bacon (maybe only 25%?) which is good, and it doesn't have nitrites in it, which is also good.  (Side note, when Alice was pregnant with the chaps, she had to give up nitrites, so she had to make do with sausage only, no bacon or ham!) We made excellent BLTs with it that night, and had it for breakfast the next day. We've since used it to make praline bacon with, which turned out very well. The only real drawback to me, was that it is impossible to slice bacon well and truly and hemingwayesque unless it is mostly frozen.  If it is totally frozen, you can still do it, but it takes a while!

    We will definitely do this again, but probably not right now, at least not this way. You really should not let the meat get over 80 degrees during the smoking, unless you're going all the way up to 140-150.  By the time I get around to trying it again, I think it will be too warm for that.

Bacon and The Book of Harold

Today's reading is from The Book of Harold, Chapter 3, Page 175:

Modern ham and bacon contain more moisture that the dry-cured versions (sometimes more than the original raw meat!) and about half the salt--3-4% instead of  5-7%.  Where slices of traditional ham and bacon fry easily and retain 75% of their weight, the wetter modern versions spatter, shrink, and curl as they give up their water, and retain only a third of their initial weight.
         The illuminating passage above comes from On Food and Cooking, by Harold McGee.  If you do anything in the kitchen more than boiling water for Jello, placing Pop-Tarts in the toaster, or microwaving fudge sauce for the two month old vanilla ice cream in the freezer,  you really should consider getting a copy.  Mr. McGee can teach you something wonderful about anything you're doing or want to do. Really, you should.  If you aren't sure, go check out a copy from your local library.

So lets figure this bacon thing out.  Regular name brand bacon costs at least $3 a pound.(but it is usually sold in 12 oz packages--go figure).  You get about 20 slices per pound. That is 15 cents per piece. (usually pretty rinky-dinky pieces!) Artisanal bacon from Allan Benton or Caw Caw Creek is $6 a lb., but with them you get less slices per pound because it is a thicker cut. Last week I got 14 pieces that weighed in at exactly 7 ounces after cooking. That's 42 cents per piece. I would not be ashamed to serve only one piece to a guest: yes, it is that good. Cooking Light, (the magazine) amongst others, toast artisanal bacons for that very reason!  You will, for real, remember what you had for breakfast!

That's not all, brothers and sisters!  You get the bacon grease. You need to keep this! And folks, let me tell you one thing before you start in on the cardiovascular righteousness.   You don't have to use a lot of this. Use maybe a teaspoon to saute a whole big frying pan of onions, and you've got something that'll make any sandwhich stand up and take a bow. A pot of butter-peas never had such a friend! If you use a tablespoon of it for a whole pone of cornbread, (8-10 servings) you will not leave any crumb to fall by the wayside.You just can't do that with normal bacon drippings.


Can I get an AMEN?