This whole journey into charcuterie started with my reading about other making their own preserved and smoked gourmet meats and one of the primary references always cited was Charcuterie, by Michael Ruhlman, Brian Polcyn and Thomas Keller. Both Ruhlman and Polcyn are well experienced as chefs and as masters of the art of charcuterie.
Reading through Charcuterie has been an epic trek for both my mind, my senses and my palette. There are so many dishes that I have been inspired to make by this and a few other books that I purchased after Charcuterie. However, Charcuterie was the genesis of this particular trip down the rabbit hole - expect more posts involving this books recipes and adaptations of them.
Why make it from scratch? Because then I can control all the ingredients going into the food - the sourcing of the pork belly, just how much salt, sodium nitrite, sugar and other spices go into it. As opposed to buying the generic grocery store stuff that is pumped up with water solution and shrinks by at least 40%. Home made bacon doesn't have this problem, is generally cut thicker and isn't filled with water. Expect amazingness. Like I said - I like to make things from scratch, at least once to see if it's worth it. I don't eat bacon near as often as I want to - so I'm going to make it the best I can when I do eat it. The thought of home made bacon, crisped up and on a plate with scrambled eggs, homemade toast with homemade jam/jelly/labneh just makes me smile and makes me totally satisfied. That whole warming the soul thing again...it's real - I swear!
Alright. All that aside - the important part - BACON. The majority of people I know start salivating at the thought of crispy (or chewy...if you're my wife) bacon with eggs and some sort of bread (muffin, english muffin, toast, waffle - what have you). I've always wanted to make the tasty concoction and took my time in sourcing a pork belly locally. I ended up ordering a pork belly through my local butcher, Lothar Erbe, who owns and runs "Lothar's Sausages and Fine Meats". 7.5 pounds of porcine goodness was presented to me 2 weeks ago and I, giddy with excitement for the tastes to come, hurried home (after a couple beers and about an hour of talking about meat and life with Lothar - this is a guy who knows what it means to really make a customer feel at home and really connect with them). I also came home with some fat back - I cannot wait to fry up breakfast with those!
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| Two section of pork belly all divided up. Look at that meat and fat! It is going to taste so amazing. |
- One 3-5 pound slab of pork belly (it's okay to go over this)
- Ruhlman's basic dry cure (After the photo)
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| An already portioned part of the pork belly slab - skin on. Approximately 2 pounds of porcine goodness. You'll see next to it optional additions for a more savory bacon - Bay leaves, peppercorns (freshly cracked) and garlic (smashed) as well as a jar of the basic dry cure. |
- 1 pound kosher salt
- 8 ounces sugar
- 2 ounces pink salt (sodium nitrite) (10 teaspoons)
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| Pork belly section with 1/4 cup dry cure, 3 smashed garlic cloves, 2 TBS of cracked pepper, and 2 crushed bay leaves |
- Maple syrup
- Brown Sugar
- Bay Leaves
- Juniper Berries
- Peppercorns
- Garlic cloves
Seal and shake the bag like you just don't care. That way you get pretty even coverage of the cure and spices all over the belly. It doesn't have to be perfect - everything will even out as the cure does it's magic in the fridge.
Few things make me happier than the smell of fresh cracked peppercorns, smashed garlic and bay leaves. They are absolutely fragrant! For a sweeter slab of bacon - use 1/4 cup of brown sugar or maple syrup. I made 2 savory slabs of bacon and 2 sweeter varieties.
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| Pork belly, shaken - not stirred. Garlic, peppercorn and bay leaf garnish. |
Once I placed all my ingredients with their respective bags and shook 'em like I just didn't care - I placed them in the fridge to rest for 7 days. What happens during this time? Magic. Bacony and tasty magic. The salts in the dry cure pull moisture out of the pork belly while infusing it with cure and your flavor additions (somewhat akin to brining). Here's the hard part: every day, flip the bags over so that the pork belly's get equal exposure to the cure. Day 2- flip. Day 3-flip. And so on. Come Day 7 - check the firmness of the belly - if it is firm at it's thickest point, the bellies are done curing. If not - leave it for 2 more days (flipping each extra day). Once it's nice and firm - we can move on.
So. We're almost there. Really, I swear. I know, I know - you're breaking a sweat from all the effort and worry that you felt each day as you reached into your fridge and flipped those bags. I know I did (not really - I was usually distracted by conducting a mental inventory of the specialty beers in the fridge door - more on that another day).
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| Yummy, yummy bacon. It smells amazing! I can't wait to finish it! |
Alright - the pork is nice and firm in your hand. (Yes, you may snicker now) So what do we do with this hunk of meat? It's time to remove it from the cure and rinse it. That's right - run the pork bellies under cold water to remove excess liquid cure or additional ingredients like the peppercorns and garlic bits. Then pat the belly dry and refrigerate covered on a dish in the cold chest for up to 3 days.
"BUT, Cracklin', what do I do now?!?" You can hot smoke the pork bellies until they reach 150 degrees. (Roughly 2 hours - Ruhlman says to start checking the temperature around 1.5 hours). Or you can put the bellies in the oven on a baking sheet at 200 degrees for the same amount of time. Once the bacon reaches 150 degrees - remove it from the oven and use a sharp kitchen knife to remove the skin while the fat is still warm.
You can then cool the bacon, vacuum pack it and freeze it. One website I found during additional research to prepare for my embarkation down this yummy path suggested chilling, partially freezing the bacon and then slicing it. Once sliced - use Glad press-n-seal and create bunches of individually sectioned pieces of bacon that you can freeze. Another way is to place the pork belly in the fridge to partially freeze it and then slice, and vacuum pack the sliced belly and place in the freezer. BUT - most importantly, cut off a small bit, fresh from the oven or smoker and cook it. You'll be amazed at how good it is.
Technical note - if you don't slice the cured pork belly up into bacon slices and instead cut them into chunks to cook with - they are called lardons. You can render fat easily from these (why on earth you'd do that with the amazing bacon you've made - I have no earthly idea), or use them to help fry up ingredients for a soup, chili, stew or home fries!
It's really not that tough to do. If you wanted - after the curing - you can rinse the belly off, dry it and hang it to air dry and make pancetta. So easy. With 3 hours of active time, spread out over at least a week, you've got superior, nay - ultimate bacon. Please do consider giving it a chance. If you're trying to watch your budget - talk to your local grocery store meat department - it'll be a pork belly, maybe slightly mass produced, but it'll still make great bacon. If you can swing it and want to source your food locally and from a local merchant - talk to your local artisan butcher. In my case, that means Lothar. Give him or his lovely wife June a call @ 703-677-2731 or shoot them an email at: lothar.erbe@yahoo.com
Obviously Lothar is an option only if you live in the Virginia/Maryland/DC area (especially out west). Talk to your local butcher - they're amazing folks with lots of knowledge and great stories. As Lothar and June start their weekly email "Dear valued customers and friends of good taste" - this is how a good butcher will treat you. Talk to them, they're people too, not just someone behind a counter. You'd be amazed who you get to know by starting a conversation (or what you'll end up eating or drinking!).
So - there you have it - Part One of Makin' Bacon. It really isn't that tough - some pre-planning and sourcing of ingredients and you my fellow lovers of good food, can be makin' you're own bacon!
NEXT TIME - Beef Jerky. Part 2 of Makin' Bacon will be next week!
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