Brit(-ish) Bacon

I wrote about this one trip to our local Costco (great place for meat !) where clearly on that occasion the pork market was skewed in favour of the buyers, and prices were low. We ended up with a huge pork loin for very little money which was split into three parts. One part was bacon-bound and this process has been so successful that it now looks like a second of the pieces is going to become bacon too !

Every once in a while, the breakfast-time desire to be reminded of home gets strong and we need a “proper bacon sarnie”. American bacon is certainly OK, and sometimes THAT’S what we want, but there are those other times… The full monty, is of course “proper white bread” with “proper bacon”, “proper butter” and HP Sauce and on occasion the stars will align and those ingredients will come together (with a proper cuppa).

To be fair, I only started making bacon since moving to the USA. Real “back bacon” is hard to find here, although Canadian Bacon will make do at a pinch. So for those who are not British – what is British Bacon ? Wikipedia has the answers, as always !

Back bacon is a cut of bacon that includes the pork loin from the back of the pig. It may also include a portion of the pork belly in the same cut. Back bacon is derived from the same cut used for pork chops. It is the most common cut of bacon used in British and Irish cuisine, where both smoked and unsmoked varieties of bacon are found.

Canadian bacon is the American name for a form of back bacon that is cured, smoked and fully cooked, trimmed into cylindrical medallions, and thickly sliced. Canadian bacon is made only from the lean eye of the loin and is ready to eat. Its flavour is described as more ham-like than other types because of its lean cut.

Wikipedia – “Back Bacon”

So it’s a hybrid of the loin and belly, and usually with the skin (rind) on. Try explaining that to a US butcher, by the way. “Skin on” isn’t a normal thing in the here, but it can be ordered with some patience. (I have the same problem with pork bellies – “pressed pork” recipes NEED the crackling !). This was a loin from Costco, sans rind, so I guess what I ended up doing was Canadian Bacon in the style of British Bacon…. “Brit-ish” and certainly close enough.

Not that there’s much need for a recipe book when curing your own bacon but you do need to be careful about the proportions of the cure – too much of the curing salt can be dangerous, so advice should be sought and care taken. There are also two basic processes – dry cure and wet cure. The latter uses water – essentially a brine – but I like to use a dry cure method. It’s easier, less bulky in the fridge and less messy. There’s a great book (pictured above) which has great coverage of the basics and LOTS of new things to try, including sausage making (one day). “Maple Cured Smoked Bacon” is in there, but in my version I wanted a little bit of extra heat and less (no) smoke. So it ended up with a couple of extras – some red pepper flakes and black pepper.

The pink stuff below is called Prague Powder #1. There are two versions of this too – #1 is for short cures and #2 is a curing salt for long cures of sausage etc. It’s pink to avoid confusion with normal table salt, which is added to make the cure. Beyond that, the cure can include pretty much any additional flavours and there are some pretty esoteric ideas out there. Back to my combination of maple and heat, I had some maple sugar in the cupboard from a road trip on Route 66 with my son a couple of years ago. Maple sugar is essentially dried maple syrup and this form is much better for a dry curing process. I included some coarsely ground and some lightly cracked black peppercorns as well as the chilli flakes.

The convenience of the dry-cure is clear in that the pork loin is simply “rubbed” with the cure mix and the whole lot placed in a ziploc bag and put in the fridge. The salt rub will draw the moisture out of the pork and at the same time impart a darker colour to the meat. The process takes seven days with the only intervention being to flip the bag over each day – the pork needs to stay in contact with the liquid.

On Day 7 the pork can be taken out and the brine thoroughly rinsed off. You can see the difference the curing process makes to the raw pork loin below.

And that’s basically it ! Optionally the bacon (because that’s now what it is !) can be hot-smoked or cold-smoked. In this case, I did neither…and went straight to the hacking slicing and packing….reserving one pack for immediate consumption, naturally.

As a refinement for next time, maybe one less day in the fridge and possibly a post-cure soak in some fresh water overnight – just to take away a slightly over-saltiness. Also, no harm would come of increasing the maple sugar ratio for a bit more sweetness !