Bakin’ & Bacon

The Glories of Bacon

For once it looks like I was slightly ahead of the curve. A Time magazine article online today celebrates the pig in all its glory.

Maybe it's a recession-driven money saver, or maybe we just feel the need to get back in touch with what we eat, but Americans everywhere are discovering the pleasures of home-cured bacon. Culinary blogs are replete with homemade-bacon recipes, including how to make pancetta. Mario Batali's recipe for guanciale, cured pig cheek, has gone viral. Leading the piggy parade is food writer Michael Ruhlman, who has challenged his blog readers to make a BLT from scratch - including homegrown lettuce and tomatoes and homemade bread - shoot a picture, submit it and win a prize: his latest book Ratio.

Read all about it here.

Pancetta

I finally took down the pancetta I had hanging in my basement. I thought the recipe said to cure for three weeks, but when I checked last night it turns out I was only supposed to hang it for two. Oops! I think it is still safe to eat - it passed the sniff test, and it looked fine. Plus, pancetta isn't served raw, so cooking should kill anything that might be left. I noticed one tiny spot of what could have been a white fuzzy mold on the meaty part, but didn't smell anything. I scraped that bit off, and actually unrolled the pancetta to make sure there wasn't anything nasty hiding inside. Since I only had a 2.5 lb slab of pork belly, it didn't roll up as tightly as I would have liked, so although there was some sticking, it unrolled completely. I suppose it shouldn't do that - next time I'll use a larger piece of belly so I can roll it up tighter. Pancetta freezes well so a larger piece won't go to waste.

Pancetta is cured but not smoked, so it is a perfect recipe for a beginner like me. You rub the cure over a flat piece of pork belly and refrigerate, flipping the belly over every day to evenly distribute the cure. Once the meat has firmed up, which takes about a week, you roll it, tie it, and hang it for two weeks in a cool place with decent humidity. Our basement was nearly ideal, if a tad on the dry side. The relative humidity stayed at about 50%, although I think 55 to 60% is ideal. The temperature, though, was spot on at a pretty constant 60 degrees. The only tricky part was finding a place to hang the meat where none of my six cats could reach it. I ended up hanging it in the middle of what will be the family room, if we ever get around to finishing it. The first day or so the cats camped out underneath it, looking up longingly at the pork belly. After a few fruitless days they gave up and ignored it. The upside to having six cats is that they kill any insects that may find their way into the house, so I didn't have to worry about flies and other bugs landing on the meat and leaving, um, deposits.

The first use for the pancetta was carbonara - one of my favorite weeknight meals because it is easy yet delicious. I diced 8 ounces of the pancetta and fried it in extra-virgin olive oil. When the pancetta was crispy, I poured in half a cup of vermouth and let it cook down until syrupy. I beat 3 eggs, diced garlic, salt and about 3 ounces of grated Parmesan Reggiano in a small bowl. Once the pound of spaghetti had cooked, I drained it (reserving some of the cooking water), and added the eggs and cheese. I added a bit of the pasta cooking water to keep it moist, then added the pancetta mixture. Finally, I ground black pepper over the mixture. It was delightful - and we are still here two days later, so the pancetta must be safe to eat.

Bacon Two Ways, Part II - Results

Yesterday we smoked the bacons. The recipes called for hot smoking, which ended up cooking the bacon more so than what you would purchase. I want to try cold smoking sometime (the temp in the smoker never gets above 100 degrees), but the results we got from both of these pieces was extraordinary. I'll let the photos speak for themselves. First, ready for the smoker:

I want to point out that my dear husband is the one who did all the smoking. I merely observed. Not only did he build the fire, he make his own lump charcoal out of oak chunks. This involves a few extra hours of work, but my sweetie wants only the best. Since we found out that charcoal contains all kinds of additives including actual coal. Yuk.

We supplemented the oak coals with hickory chunks to enhance the flavor. DH tended the fire for nearly 4 hours, maintaining it at the optimal temperature. The smell was amazing.

YUM!

Bacon Two Ways: Part I

Tonight I started the first two projects I will make from Charcuterie. I bought some skin-on pork belly, and had a pork loin hanging out, so I decided to make two kinds of bacon - American and Canadian. When my husband found out which cut is used for Canadian bacon, he joked, "Those Canadians sure eat high off the hog." Har-dee-har-har.

Bacon sure seems simple enough. First, you get pork belly (which is one of the hardest parts around here). You rub it with a cure that includes salt, pink salt (sodium nitrite), sugar and whatever seasonings you wish to add. We decided that peppered bacon would be great. Pink salt is a very pale, feminine pink. I can't believe that self-respecting, manly butchers chose this color on purpose. Maybe their wives suggested it. I know, I know, it makes the meat an attractive color in a way that blue, for instance, wouldn't. But it's just so - pink.

Once you rub the belly with the cure, you put it in a bag and refrigerate it for about a week, or until the meat is firm. Every day you flip the bacon over to evenly distribute the brine that will form. I used a foodsaver bag, but didn't make a vacuum seal. The instructions don't call for it, and I figured that it was better to err on the side of caution, since anaerobic bacteria are pretty nasty and I didn't want to have my first batch of bacon spoiled.

Once the meat is firm, you smoke the bacon until the internal temp reaches 150. That seems high to me but I guess I'll follow the instructions this time. I know I've seen other people cold smoke it at a much lower temp, but for the first one I'll behave,

While that went into the fridge for curing, I prepared the brine for the Canadian bacon. The instructions call for a "bunch" of thyme and a "large bunch" of sage leaves. I have no idea what that means so I guessed. I'm not a huge sage fan so opted to use just a few leaves. An aside on these leaves - I layered them in a container with kosher salt many months ago. I expected them to be dry and brittle but as you can see, they are flexible. It's a great way to keep sage when the weather gets cold and your plants are about to freeze.  The photo is a little out of focus - sorry about that. I haven't completely figured out the new camera.

In addition to the sage and thyme, the brine has kosher salt, sugar, garlic and pink salt. The instructions direct you to heat the liquid to dissolve the sugar and salts, then cool it in the fridge before adding the meat. I opted to just use part of the water to dissolve the salts and sugar, add the rest of the room temp water and add ice cubes to hasten the cooling process. Time is precious! And I am lazy! The pork loin swims in the brine for 48 hours, so until then I'll just have to cool my heels. You can smoke the Canadian bacon, but Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn (the authors of Charcuterie) say you can get acceptable results just roasting it in the oven. I might just do that since I don't know if I want to play with the grill this week.

Stay tuned - results to follow!

Curing Supplies

I just received my order from butcher-packer.com and I'm so excited! You can see all the goodies in the photo. First, there is the pink salt, the main curing salt for bacon and other non-aged things. I also got some #2 cure (it was cheap so why not), and the rest of the bags contain casings. I got hog casings for the medium-sized sausages, sheep casing for hot dogs and links, and a beef bung that I'll probably use for mortadella.

I plan to start with bacon and pancetta. I have some pork belly in the freezer that I will thaw, and once it's thawed I'll step you through the process. The bacon will have to wait a few days since it needs a week to cure before it's smoked, and I want to make sure it's ready for smoking on a weekend when we have time. Plus I want it to be warmer than 16 degrees outside! Brrrr...

Holiday Wreath Revisited

I have seen many types of edible wreaths featuring herbs and fruits, but after an idea was sparked on the Cook's Illustrated Bulletin Board, I decided to tackle meat as the medium. I'm not much of an artist, but gave it the ol' college try. I think it could be done better using different kinds of meats (more salami and other round shaped meats), but I was limited by our office holiday party needs and budget. So here is what I devised:
You will note the bacon bows. I did about as well with them as I do with ribbon or cloth bows, which is to say they sucked. Also, I didn't take these photos and other folks handled the trays after I dropped them off, so some shifting of the "berries" occurred. They looked a little better when I handed them off than when the photos were taken.

Everyone really like them and especially liked the fact that you could get just one piece of meat without a bunch clinging to it like when you purchase the trays from the grocery store. I would call these a qualified success. I may try again later with some different meat products and see if I can do better.