I took the Modernist-ish pork belly out of the cure on Friday. It's hanging in the basement fridge. I'm hoping to smoke it on Thursday. Could be just me but hanging any charcuterie makes me think of Christmas. "The (insert cured meat) was hung with care..."
Hey Jon I've been following your bacon posts for a while now, and I'm curious as to why you call it modernist bacon. Is it because you got it from a modern cookbook or something? What makes it different from your bread and butter bacon?
ReplyDeleteHey Dave
ReplyDeleteI've been calling it Modernist because the original version of this recipe is from Modernist Cuisine, that huge gastronomy tome that came out last year. It is currently selling for a tick over $450 at Amazon now. Being cheap, I found a very nice librarian to send me a copy of the bacon page.
The first difference between this and a typical dry cured bacon for me is the use of sodium erythorbate (which I think helps break down the nitrates speeding up the cure). I haven't seen it anywhere else. The other differences (to me at least) are in the technique - the vacuum bagging and extended time hanging in the fridge after the cure. I haven't seen another recipe suggest vacuum bagging and most recipes - even ones using brines - call for drying the surface of the meat overnight. This recipe calls for a full week.
Not sure these are huge differences, but I thought the only pork belly I cured following these directions was delicious. In an effort to make the seasonings more kid friendly, I've dropped pepper, coriander, mace and star anise from this batch. The kids liked it, but I think they will like it more without the mace and star anise. This go around is pretty much just a salt and sugar cure with a a few twists.
Hope you are done with that test so you can enjoy the summer...and if you haven't taken it yet, the answer is almost always C.