I haven't seen a really nice looking pork belly anywhere and I am out of bacon. I thought I'd try my hand and Canadian Bacon. Last night I simmered 2 liters of water. Added 200 grams of kosher salt, 200 grams of sugar (mostly brown sugar but some raw organic sugar made it in the mix), and 40 grams of pink salt. I combined this with 2 more liters of water in a bowl and let it sit on the counter. Through on some plastic wrap and put the bowl in the fridge overnight. (if anyone has any idea how to stop random rotations of pictures, please let me know)
Tonight, I trimmed up a 5 lb piece of pork loin. I took 3 chops to grill for dinner tomorrow and trimmed up the rest.
The loin went into a bag. I added some garlic, thyme and sage. I was going to add some bay, but I forgot.
In goes the brine and it all gets bundled up to cure.
I'll take it out Friday night, rinse it and let it sit in the fridge uncovered. Try to smoke it on Saturday. Then we'll have some homemade bacon for our weekly "Breakfast for Dinner" meal. I want to try and put a slice of bacon in a muffin tin, crack in an egg and then bake it until the egg is cooked. How bad could that be?
Koo loo koo koo koo koo koo koo!
duuuuuudeeee!!!!!! yr my fucking hero! I'm getting an 8 lb pork loin next week, thanks for the idea. hopefully, our smoker will be completed
ReplyDelete"take off, you hoser"
That looks delicious already.
ReplyDeletephairhead- if you need some pink salt, I can hook you up. One of my goals in life is to encourage as many people as possible to cure something. I got one guy hooked last winter. What can I say, I'm an enabler.
ReplyDeleteNot sure if pink salt is available locally. Maybe Adventures in Food has it. I've got a friend in Buffalo that is willing to stop by the Sausage Maker and hook me up with supplies. Anyhow, if you want some, it's on my shelf.
Mer- thanks. I'll be sure to get some pictures of the smoking.
I'm drooling already. Now I just need to figure out how to cure a nice batch of bacon...
ReplyDeleteBoth my slab bacon and Candaian bacon are variation on recipes from Michael Ruhlman. The slab bacon is from the book Charcuterie which has a few bacon recipes. The Canadian bacon is from Ratio. There is a Canadian bacon recipe in Charcuterie, but the brine looked overly salty.
ReplyDeleteThe internet is full of bacon lovers and homemade bacon. You shouldn't have a hard time finding a recipe. The only ingredient that is tough to find is pink salt. Not sure about the stores near you, but I get mine from either the Sausage Maker in Buffalo, NY or Butcher & Packer in Chicago, IL. I'd offer you some of mine, but Minnesota is a bit of a drive....