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making bacon

My Own Bacon!

18 Nov 2011

2 Comments

Wow! James saved the bacon… literally!

I was ready to throw it away, but my younger son James begged me not to. So last night he carefully trimmed away all of the outer charcoal and sliced the remaining unburned middle.

And then I fried it up.

Smelled... sooo... good...

Oh wow. Salty. Rich crackling fat. It browned faster than store bacon, and no water came out of it at all. It did render a lot of fat very quickly, more than even the bacon from Wards.

So much better than store-bought bacon

It was sliced very thick, so was chewy rather than crispy. So much richer than store-bought bacon! One small piece was totally satisfying.

Beautiful, beautiful home-cured bacon

By: Andi Houston Category: Charcuterie Tags: , , , , ,

bacon fire, sausage dinner, and poutine, y’all

14 Nov 2011

7 Comments

Dinner last night started in tragedy.

Jim and I got the grill set up to smoke the pork belly which has been curing in the fridge for the last 10 days on its way to becoming bacon. He soaked applewood chunks, we set the grill pan on the lowest setting, waited until the coals were nice and glowing, set the wrapped applewood chunks on top, set the slabs of pork belly on the warming rack above the grill surface, closed it up and went inside to continue dinner prep while the bacon smoked for a leisurely hour or so.

About 20 minutes later I went out to check the temperature and saw flames shooting out of the side of the grill.

Doesn't that just bring tears to your eyes?

The slabs of pork belly had caught fire. We had to pull them out with long tongs and put them in the fire pit and smother them with the lid of the cast iron dutch oven. We’re still trying to decide whether to try and salvage what’s left or just throw them away.

The bacon conflagration

The rest of dinner, thankfully, was fantastic. We took the coils of sausage I made Saturday, speared them with perpendicular metal skewers, grilled them until almost done, and then finished them in a simmering bath of beer and sauteed sweet peppers. I love cooking fresh sausage this way and the extra moisture from the final beer braise kept the lower-fat sausages from drying out.

I also made poutine for the first time. Poutine is a Canadian dish, but I made a Southern version with sweet potatoes from the farmer’s market, locally made cheese, and gravy made from pork roast drippings.

Poutine, y’all

6 big sweet potatoes, cut for steak fries
olive oil
2-3 tbl Cajun or blackening seasoning
2 cups brown gravy, however you want to make it
1 lb Wainwright Dairy fresh cheddar curds (Get ‘em at Wards!)
Plenty of cracked pepper

Heat oven to 450. Toss cut up sweet potatoes with olive oil and plenty of blackening or Cajun seasoning. Roast in the oven for 20 minutes, and then turn them all over and roast until well browned and soft on the inside. You may have to cook them in batches. Heat gravy to simmering. Once all the fries are done, put them all in a baking dish. Separate the cheddar curds with your fingers and scatter over the fries, then pour over the piping hot gravy. Hit with a final blast of black pepper.

Then back away quickly so you’re not trampled by the ravening hordes.

By: Andi Houston Category: Charcuterie, Eat Local Challenge, Recipes! Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Charcutepalooza, here we come

3 Nov 2011

5 Comments

Last night my father and I made our first forays into charcuterie. I have been hoarding pork belly from the last several pigs and we finally set a date to begin our new food producing adventure.

I first heard about Charcutepalooza, a year of food projects based on Michael Ruhlman & Brian Polcyn’s book Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing, on Punk Domestics. I was immediately interested but it was too late to join in on the fun. I ordered the book, read the Charcutepalooza blog posts there and on the dozens of other blogs participating, and then started reading the book. Then last month we started gathering the ingredients, and I knew when I saw the perfect three-pound thin whole pork belly from this wild hog that it was time to start.

So last night, after an insanely delicious dinner of pork belly bulgogi with fish cake and sweet lap xiong sausages, fresh winter kimchi, shredded cuttlefish, and hot rice, we got to work.

my small marble mortar and sad broken pestle was not up for this task, and we quickly resorted to the blender.

First we mixed up the basic cure using “pink salt”, kosher salt, and sugar, then the savory cure for the bacon. I know most people like sugar-cured bacon, and there is some sugar in the cure, but my husband and my father are both diabetic and I wanted them to be able to enjoy this bacon. So first we used my small marble mortar and pestle to crush peppercorns, bay leaves and garlic together. Then we slathered the bacon pieces in the cure, dropped them carefully into plastic bags, and put them in a deep casserole dish in the fridge.

This is the two pieces of proto-bacon. When this is done curing so the meat is firm and then smoked, it will then be proper bacon.

Then we started on the pancetta. As soon as I saw this large thin piece of pork belly I knew it had to be used for pancetta. It’s too thin for sliced bacon but perfect for rolling. We realized that my little mortar and pestle would not be up for this cure, we dumped the mixture in a blender and pulverized it all together, then rubbed it into the meat.

This is proto-pancetta, in its initial cure of salt, sugar, pink salt/sodium nitrite, pepper, juniper berries, garlic, bay leaves, nutmeg and thyme.

The first steps were easy. Next week: smoking and rolling!

By: Andi Houston Category: Charcuterie, Cow Pooling, Current Fascination Tags: , , , , , , , ,