homemade bacon

[sarea_okelani]

I finally used my stovetop smoker for its intended purpose... making bacon! You don't actually need a smoker to make bacon; the curing process is what makes bacon bacon. But it sure does make it delicious. There's actually very little active work involved with making bacon at home; mostly you're just waiting for the cure to draw out the liquid in

Comments

[rogh_sensei]

Point of order: Smoking is what makes bacon bacon, along with curing. If you just cure it, you've got a flat pancetta.

[sarea_okelani]

Pancetta is a type of bacon though. What makes bacon bacon is the curing. What you do after that distinguishes the type of bacon it is. That's my understanding from everything I've read, anyway.

[rogh_sensei]

I guess we're going to have to agree to disagree on this; I consider bacon to be a smoked, cured pork belly product. Pancetta and bacon are both cured meats (and a subset of charcuterie) but my understanding has always been that it needs smoke to be bacon.

[sarea_okelani]

Well, I'm not an expert on the topic so it's less my opinion than that of some quite well-respected charcuterie/meat experts (Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, author of The River Cottage Meat Book and Brian Polcyn and Michael Ruhlman, authors of Charcuterie), who I'm getting my info from, so I don't mind if you want to disagree w/ them at all!

[ghoti]

I just made bacon too :) Well, my three year old mostly did it. It was delicious, I hope yours pleases you as much.

Now I'm working on halal mutton 'bacon'.

[sarea_okelani]

Ha! What a good example... bacon's so easy a 3 year old can do it. Awesome.

[figmo]

Drool. Slobber. Where does one get one of these stovetop smokers?

[sarea_okelani]

I bought mine on Amazon -- the Nordic Ware, not the Cameron (so that I can one day smoke a whole chicken in it :D).