My Benton's hickory smoked bacon arrived while I was on vacation. My roommate graciously put it in the fridge for me and amazingly didn't steal any. I'm not sure if I'm gracious enough to share though.How clever is your roommate? Perhaps he carefully cut open the package, removed the bacon, cooked and ate it, then replaced it with some tofu-bacon and resealed the bag so well that you can't tell that he did anything.
Fearing this might be the case I randomly selected a package (1d4) and cooked myself 3 slices. It's definitely real bacon.
Hickory smoked deliciousness. It's like eating a campfire, in a good way.
They hand rub the bacon with their mixture of salt, brown sugar and pepper (it's very light on the last two). Let it cure/age, then smoke it over a hickory fire (burning hickory wood being the heat source, not wood chips to add extra smoke).
The meat is super tender and comes apart nicely. The fat rendered a decent amount of grease and is chewy, without being too chewy.
There's a couple of simple solutions to avoid curling:
1) grill the bacon - I just put it on the rack, usually flipping it once to get a little crispy-ness on the other side. I do indirect heat, for example if I'm cooking burgers on 1/2 the grill that side is on, while I do the bacon on the other half with no heat directly underneath, otherwise you get burnt bacon.
2) bake the bacon - put a rack over a shallow pan, put the bacon on the rack. Cook around 350-425, depending on how fast and crispy you want it. Drain the pan into a container afterwards if you want to save the bacon fat.
The nice thing about both methods, you can do a LOT more bacon at a time than you can in a frying pan, so they're also good if you're cooking for groups or just making lots of bacon.
Yesterday I made spaghetti carbonara with the best local bacon I've found. It was delicious. I think tomorrow I'm going to try it again but use the bacon from Tennessee that I bought, which is by far the best bacon I've ever had.
I'm leaning towards sausage today actually sage sausage.
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Did I mention my Original Bacon Kit Christmas present?
So we're all coming to Aberzombie's house for breakfast?
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Did I mention my Original Bacon Kit Christmas present?So we're all coming to Aberzombie's house for breakfast?
You are welcome any time! But if Freehold wants to come, he's got to renounce winter.
There's a couple of simple solutions to avoid curling:
1) grill the bacon - I just put it on the rack, usually flipping it once to get a little crispy-ness on the other side. I do indirect heat, for example if I'm cooking burgers on 1/2 the grill that side is on, while I do the bacon on the other half with no heat directly underneath, otherwise you get burnt bacon.
2) bake the bacon - put a rack over a shallow pan, put the bacon on the rack. Cook around 350-425, depending on how fast and crispy you want it. Drain the pan into a container afterwards if you want to save the bacon fat.
The nice thing about both methods, you can do a LOT more bacon at a time than you can in a frying pan, so they're also good if you're cooking for groups or just making lots of bacon.
Yesterday I made spaghetti carbonara with the best local bacon I've found. It was delicious. I think tomorrow I'm going to try it again but use the bacon from Tennessee that I bought, which is by far the best bacon I've ever had.
Yyyeeesssss. Bacon+pasta=amazing
You are welcome any time! But if Freehold wants to come, he's got to renounce winter.Did I mention my Original Bacon Kit Christmas present?So we're all coming to Aberzombie's house for breakfast?
That's cool. I prefer sage sausage for breakfast anyway.
I'll be there for lunch and dinner, though. Or simple apertifs, if its going to involve some of that home-made mead...yum.
Either you like bacon, or you're wrong.
Cheese!
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You are welcome any time! But if Freehold wants to come, he's got to renounce winter.Did I mention my Original Bacon Kit Christmas present?So we're all coming to Aberzombie's house for breakfast?That's cool. I prefer sage sausage for breakfast anyway.
I'll be there for lunch and dinner, though. Or simple apertifs, if its going to involve some of that home-made mead...yum.
As long as you don't admit to disliking bacon (which, of course, no awesomely cool person would do) then you are welcome to come share mead any time. Just leave the winter behind.
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Did I mention my Original Bacon Kit Christmas present?
By the by....looking through the kit, it calls for using a 5 lb pork belly to make the bacon. Five pounds!!!
It calls for pork butt? Not pork belly?
I have to go to the butcher shop today or tomorrow and pick up a couple pounds of bacon. A friend is hosting a house-con this weekend for his birthday (2 days of board games and roleplaying games) and I'm going to make a bacon explosion.
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It calls for pork butt? Not pork belly?
I have to go to the butcher shop today or tomorrow and pick up a couple pounds of bacon. A friend is hosting a house-con this weekend for his birthday (2 days of board games and roleplaying games) and I'm going to make a bacon explosion.
It might be belly. I only looked at the instructions briefly. Plus, I saw the whole pork butt thing somewhere and the funny stuck in my head.
I like the sound of this bacon explosion. When the zombiepocalypse comes, we'll eat you second to last.
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Guess I'm not coming then... I don't dislike bacon, I absolutely despise it, and I still can't see the basis for this current fad. Although I strongly suspect that it dates from one particular dog food commercial, the one with the Sam Raimi type nose cam.
See the Rules of Bacon #3. First page of the thread.
I just ate 21 rashers of bacon.
Speaking of bacon...I had two turkey, lettuce, and....BACON wraps for lunch today.
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So for the New Year's Day collards and black eyed peas, I always use pork side meat instead of a hamhock (and I quick steam and then saute the collards instead of cooking them all day long). That pork side meat though, it's like bacon's little known cousin ... I always have extra and it when cooked in a pan it ends up with the taste of bacon but with a nice initial crisp texture that quickly just melts in your mouth. Man, I love New Year's Day.
I cooked my bacon explosion. It was delicious.
Unfortunately it was too cold outside to use the smoker. So it wasn't epic. It was good, just not epic.
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