Mmmmm Bacon*

Just made a batch of bacon. Seems easy to do, let’s hope it tastes good. First difficult item to procure was the curing salt, difficult to get just a few ounces. Curing salt #1 or pink salt, is dyed pink and is 93.75 % salt with 6.25% nitrite added. It can be ordered online and for the amount I wanted the shipping was more than the item cost. Next, it was difficult to get the pork bellie for the bacon. Finally was able to get some today at Fairway market in Red Hook, Brooklyn. I tried several local butchers and pork stores and tried Western beef(that was an almost) and also tried Whole foods which was an almost as well.

First you mix up a batch of a dry cure which is one part pink salt, 4 parts sugar, 8 parts kosher salt. Put the pig in a ziplock bag, add 1/4 cup of the dry cure. Shake it all about. Add some seasoning (I did 1/4 cup maple sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar) and then let it sit in the fridge for a week. It is supposed to firm up as it cures. After it cures you can put it in a 200 degree oven for 2 hours or until the internal temperature gets to 150 degrees or smoke it to the same temperature. I plan on smoking it, not sure which wood I plan to use. I have several different bags of wood chips that I received for Christmas one year. I’ll probably go with something subtle. Like me. The ingredients.Looks like bacon already and I didn’t do a thing. A 2.87 pound slab of pork bellie.I have to say, the skin side looks kinda gross, it gets discarded later. I had a rucksack made of pigskin. It was very nice.Finished product for today, just wait, smoke and eat.  

I have a day off today, so I am making the most of it.

*Credit to The Simpsons