Who Can Tell me What This is For?

[averageiowaguy]

I just got that 'excess' outta the oven....

....it's obscene.

Your sauce? I'm intrigued. What did the rest of the meal consist of?

 

[averageiowaguy]

BACON UPDATE: I turned my pork belly over and made sure the cure was hitting every possible area. It is sitting in a garbage bag in my fridge right now. It is my opinion, after making several batches of bacon, that it is important to turn your pork belly every day and redistribute the cure. To clarify - I am not running a commercial operation. If you are making large batch bacon it may not be possible to care for your bacon so much. For me this is a love affair and any effort is worth it for me.

 

[Hawkeye5]

Thanks for the up date Doc. Going to have to try the bacon thing one day. Been out trying to shoot a deer so I can try deer chile the Uncle E way.
Thanks for posting.
Hawkeye

 

[averageiowaguy]

Thanks for the up date Doc. Going to have to try the bacon thing one day. Been out trying to shoot a deer so I can try deer chile the Uncle E way.
Thanks for posting.
Hawkeye

The earliest possible day I can shoot a deer this year is Saturday. I have a concert on Friday night and I will be up until the wee hours of the morning sweating away playing the drums. To add to that, the land that my group usually hunts fell through this year, so gun season 1 in Iowa is out. I'm still trying to line up some stuff for gun season 2, but it looks doubtful. I have a place where I can for sure kill a deer in the January antlerless season, but at this point it looks to be excess. I have about 75 pounds of venison left in my freezer and about 300 pounds of pig. I'm more or less set for most of the year. We don't eat a lot of meat, unless it is part of something else. The maximum we ever eat is about 1 pound of meat for 5 people and there would be left overs from that. I can always go out and do an exotic later on to fill the freezer.

Best of luck to whoever is hunting deer this year. It isn't looking hopeful for me, but I'll keep everyone posted.

 

[scruffuk]

BYour sauce? I'm intrigued. What did the rest of the meal consist of?

I went a bit cave man and just ate the slices on their own *^_^*

I'd already had a light supper.

BACON UPDATE: I turned my pork belly over and made sure the cure was hitting every possible area. It is sitting in a garbage bag in my fridge right now. It is my opinion, after making several batches of bacon, that it is important to turn your pork belly every day and redistribute the cure. To clarify - I am not running a commercial operation. If you are making large batch bacon it may not be possible to care for your bacon so much. For me this is a love affair and any effort is worth it for me.

Thank you for that tip. I went to check on mine after reading this and I was really surprised with the amount of liquid ! I gave it all a good flip and rub around (that sounds a bit wrong 8-/).

Pity about your hunting permission. Although I only shoot an air rifle, so take small game and pests (rabbit, squirrel, pigeon), I too have lost my shooting land which is a bit of a bummer. I'm still trying to persuade work to allow me to control the bunny population on our 44 acre site....

Hope you manage to keep your eye in at some point. Happy hunting to the rest of you's lucky enough to get out.

 

[averageiowaguy]

Pork belly turned over again tonight. There was some liquid around the porky goodness and the pork was starting to firm up - sure signs that the cure is starting to take. Planning on smoking next weekend.

 

[scruffuk]

My first two pieces have really firmed up now, they seem to have taken up all the cure liquid. Is it just a case of waiting for the final few days of prescribed curing time now doc? How do you know when it's 'done'?

My second piece, much more fatty, has been cured in another pre-made mix, Laycock's Dry Cure @ 7.5% (as opposed to Supracure @ 5%). It's produced far more brine than the other mix. I've removed the rind on this slab of belly, so I was wondering if it may have made the moisture release more readily??

 

[DerekH]

You'll have to trust me, this IS Becker related and this is the appropriate place to post this. All will be explained.

After several days of thinking this over, I would say my answer is going to be:

back hair

If you could PM me for my address so you can ship the prize out to me. Thanks for the chance!

 

[averageiowaguy]

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present - BACON!

Smoked to 150 degrees. Now hanging on the hook in the basement for 28 days. I'll update when everything is done.

 

[scruffuk]

Is that bacon? That's not bacon, that's roast cured pork!

THIS is bacon!

(Top is cured with 'Supracure' and is to be lardon style....okay basically I screwed up and cut it the wrong way! And the second, more reddish rasher, is Laycock's Dry Cure).

In Blighty bacon is not hot smoked. It's also usually served 'desalinated'. I soaked both pieces of bacon for 2 1/2 hours to leach out some of the salt.

Tomorrow it will be smoked in Cherry, having had a couple of days drying.....

 

[averageiowaguy]

Is that bacon? That's not bacon, that's roast cured pork!

THIS is bacon!

(Top is cured with 'Supracure' and is to be lardon style....okay basically I screwed up and cut it the wrong way! And the second, more reddish rasher, is Laycock's Dry Cure).

In Blighty bacon is not hot smoked. It's also usually served 'desalinated'. I soaked both pieces of bacon for 2 1/2 hours to leach out some of the salt.

Tomorrow it will be smoked in Cherry, having had a couple of days drying.....

Lookin good!

 

[Hunter Sharp]

I can feel my hart stop every time I look at this thread

 

[scruffuk]

Lookin good!

Doc, yours looks delicious!!

Please can you show us a few slices when it's done maturing?

It really does look amazing.

Although I only have a cold smoker at the mo, I'm considering trying rig something up to hot smoke after your update.

*drool*

 

[averageiowaguy]

Doc, yours looks delicious!!

Please can you show us a few slices when it's done maturing?

It really does look amazing.

Although I only have a cold smoker at the mo, I'm considering trying rig something up to hot smoke after your update.

*drool*

I've been taking video footage. Not only will there be photos of the slices, there will be video. I wish I had a cold smoker! There are so many things to make in a cold smoker. Yum yum.

 

[scruffuk]

Ah, I'll look forward to that.

Thank you.

Here's the setup I have, it's pretty simple, the bin was 'requisitioned' from work, together with the meat hooks. The cooling rack is a bit crude, but it does the job.

The smoke generator is made by ProQ. I treated myself there, maybe it would be easy enough to reproduce something similar.

It came with a selection of wood dusts....

Here's the result of a recent cold smoking session, oak smoked mature Cheddar and Grana Padano. Smoking the Romano cheese was a bit of an experiment but I expect it will be good!

Please note the perfectly sealed and dated Zip-Locs!

 

[averageiowaguy]

See that is what I was talking about with the cold smoker. Just the cheeses alone would make it worthwhile. Bravo.

 

[TheGame]

This thread has made me want bacon... and cheese. Good thing I haven't eaten lunch today. Time to make some food.

 

[scruffuk]

**Bacon Update**

So I smoked my pieces of bacon after leaving it to air dry in the cellar for two days.

I used Cherry Wood, and once smoked for around 12 hours, sealed the pieces back up, and placed in the fridge for about a week for the smoke to penetrate and mellow.

It took a nice colour...and smells GREAT! A bit different what with it being cherry, but not at all bad.

The above two were rind on, Supracure and the one bellow, rindless Laycock's Dry Cure.

I opted to use the Supracure piece...because a) it was the first to cure and b) it was the piece I cut on the wrong axis and therefore makes for very small reashers. This wasn't to be a problem as I intend this to be for cooking....in this case Italian.

 

[scruffuk]

So on Tuesday evening I wanted to rustle up some pasta.

I cut an approx two inch strip of the Supracure

Removing the rind, I then sliced that into 1/4" rashers

And then cut into lardons

Next up I took a 250g bag of Spinach, rinsed it with cold water to wash the grit off and then wilted it with a kettle full of boiled water, then rinsed again in cold

I slung about 20-30g of pine nuts, two cloves of chopped garlic, the spinach, rapeseed oil and some Grana Padano (not the smoked one) into a jug

And used a hand blender to produce this....Soylent Green aka. Spinach Pesto

In hindsight I think I should have just stirred the grated Grana Padano in at the end, once I'd seasoned it with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Ah well.

Now I cooked the bacon, in a smidgen of oil

I thought it would never go golden....but i was just being impatient

I then let the bacon sit in the pan and cool a little whislt the pasta was cooked, drained and tossed in with the bacon, half the pesto and two beaten eggs to make some kinda Spaghetti Verdi/Spinach Carbonara type affair

The missus arrived just in time....I would have started without her

More bacon to be consumed this evening!

 

[Chameleonbear]

*applause!* Awesome!

I usually add roasted garlic instead of fresh garlic to my pesto, and yeah make sure the parm is added at the end. Otherwise, jolly well done ol boy!