Bacon

Heres a simple and foolproof Bacon Recipe.

We make a lot of bacon here at VHK – in fact i don’t think we’ve bought bacon from a shop in a very long time, mainly because if you make your own it just tastes so much better (and doesn’t contain all sorts of nasty additives as well.)

The recipe below is for streaky bacon, which obviously uses pork belly, but please feel free to use whatever cut of pork takes your fancy (loin = back bacon and jowl = cheeky bacon or guanciale!!)

 

Pork Belly (Streaky) Bacon

 1 pork belly

3% salt to the weight of the meat

Similar amount of  Demerara sugar

10 torn Bay Leaves

10g cracked black pepper

20 juniper berries, lightly crushed

Firstly, weigh the piece of pork belly and then weigh out 3% of its weight in salt. If, for example the pork weighed 1Kg you would weigh out 30g of salt.

In a clean, non-metallic container, thoroughly mix the salt and all of the other the flavouring ingredients you want to use. Put a thin layer of this cure in the base of a clean box or tray, big enough to hold the belly. Add the belly, skin side down, and lightly rub all of the remaining cure over every surface.

Leave the box, covered, in a cool place safe from flies or otherwise in your fridge. After 24 hours you’ll see that the meat has leached salty liquid into the container. This is the action of curing taking place.

Keep the cure on the belly, three days for every 500g of its raw weight. So if it originally weighed 1Kg it stays in the cure for 6 days.

After the allotted time wash all the cure from the belly under a cold running tap then clean their surfaces with a clean tea towel.  You can hang the belly at this stage but it is ready to slice and eat. If you are going to cold smoke hang for at least a couple of days to dry out before placing in your cold smoker.

You can keep the bacon hanging in a cool place, or store it in the fridge for as long as you can refrain from eating it. Take slices as you need them.