Homemade Bacon

There has been a lot of experimentation going on in my kitchen, primarily having to do with the new stovetop smoker that I got. It's been a blast. I love smoked food, but am not much of an outdoor griller. I was skeptical that you could produce great results with a stovetop smoker, but I was happily wrong. If you're a smoking purist, then sure, it might not work for you... but for me, it's fantastic!

I made some truly delicious baby back ribs -- twice -- before getting to use the smoker for the purpose for which it'd originally been intended... making homemade bacon. That's right, my friends, that most wonderful of pork products can be made very simply at home. It's a relatively easy process, and you can make it exactly how you like it.

If you like bacon (and really, who doesn't -- I know vegetarians who miss bacon most of all the meat products they've given up), you will LOVE what you make at home. Homemade bacon is insanely good. Not only does it taste better than store-bought bacon, it's also healthier for you because you can cure it without using sodium nitrates. I said healthier, ok. Not healthy. :P

It does require some investment (in a smoker and a meat slicer), but in the end it'll be worth it, if you love bacon and/or consume a lot of it in your house (like many things, it's cheaper to make yourself). In fact, some would say that it doesn't require any investment in special equipment. My personal opinion is that to get bacon that tastes the way I like, a smoker's pretty much required. Smoking is what gives bacon that distinctive flavor. Still, you could just cure the bacon and not smoke it -- that's still bacon (pancetta). As for the meat slicer, the first time I made bacon, I didn't have one. I figured it would be fine -- after all, anyone with a knife can slice a slab of bacon. But as I quickly found out, only a meat slicer can get the bacon into thin, uniform slices that make it, well, bacon.

First you start with these beauties: pork bellies. If you're going to make homemade bacon you might as well make the effort worthwhile! You want about 5 pounds of pork belly.



Make a wet cure, which consists of a 1/4 cup each of packed brown sugar, honey (or maple syrup), and kosher salt. This slightly sweeter cure is good for breakfast bacon. If you want to use sodium nitrate (aka pink salt) for extra protection against botulism, go for it, I won't judge you much. Mix the cure ingredients together until well blended.



Put the pork bellies into heavy duty freezer Ziploc bags so that they're not stacked on top of each other. (I used 2 bags.) Rub the cure all over the bellies. The cure might seize at first, but as you keep rubbing it will soften and stick to the bellies. Release as much air out of the bags as possible, then seal them. Every other day, flip the bags over so that the curing liquid gets evenly distributed. And yes, there will be liquid. The curing process is basically drawing as much liquid out of the meat as possible so that it will keep. As the days pass, you can check the bellies' firmness... as the water draws out they'll get firmer and firmer. Do this for about 7 days, give or take. They're ready when the bellies feel very firm at the thickest point.

At the end of the 7 days, rinse off all the cure and pat the pork bellies dry with a paper towel. They'll look something like this:



Some would say that at this point, you have bacon. You can slice it and fry it, and I'm sure it would taste pretty dang good. But for me, true bacon requires another step.

Put the cured bellies on a tray and store them in the refrigerator for another half day or so, uncovered. This will help dry off any remaining surface moisture, and the meat will feel tacky when you touch it. This will help the smoke stick.

Prepare your smoker. Smoke the bellies (unstacked, so it might require doing it twice, as mine did) at 200°F for about 2 hours, until a thermometer inserted at the thickest part reads 150°F. Once it's smoked, it might look like this:



Slice off the skin while it's hot, leaving as much fat on the bacon as possible. (You can make the skin into delicious pork crackling.) Next time I may just leave the skin on. NOW it's bacon. Taste some of it off the side -- it's OK, you've earned it, and it's fully cooked now. You can hand slice it at this point or bust out your meat slicer and make those thin slices. Here was my final haul:



My bacon wasn't red/pink like supermarket bacon. It looked like cooked pork. That's because in addition to its preservative function, sodium nitrate also gives the meat a nice, attractive red color. And of course, I didn't use that. Once you fry it up, though, it just looks like regular bacon. I like my bacon on the slightly burnt side. :D



Commercial bacon is pumped full of water, so when you cook it, the bacon shrinks. Homemade bacon shrinks very little, if at all. I froze most of what I made in 'packs' of 8 slices. Although the curing process should make the bacon last a long time, because this bacon doesn't have the preservative power of sodium nitrate it's safer to keep the unused portion frozen. No nitrates... just deliciousness!

Chicken Carbonara

I've found a new favorite way to use leftover chicken.



Sometimes I'll have leftovers from a roasted chicken in the grocery store, from a restaurant, or in this case, from a chicken I roasted at home using this method. After the initial chicken meal there are many things I like to do with the leftover meat -- enchiladas, salad, quesadillas, etc. But I think this chicken carbonara is definitely my new favorite. The rich, creamy Alfredo-esque sauce with slight smokiness from the bacon and the heartiness of the chicken makes this spaghetti dish absolutely no one's leftovers. (However, this dish itself doesn't actually make for good leftovers -- cream sauces rarely do. Reheating will make it separate, so you should eat whatever you make right then and there!)

I was inspired by this video, in which Giada De Laurentiis shares her recipe for chicken carbonara, but I adjusted it to a) serve 2 rather than what looks like an army; b) use slightly less cream to save on calories; and c) use bacon rather than pancetta, which is easier to acquire and less costly as well.



Chicken Carbonara

Serves 2

Ingredients

• 8oz dried spaghetti
• 1 cup cooked chicken, chopped
• 2 slices of strip bacon, chopped
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• 2 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup regular or heavy whipping cream (or use 3/4 cup of cream and skip the whole milk)
• 1/4 cup whole milk
• 1/2 cup parmesan cheese, grated
• 1 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
• salt to taste

Method

1. Start boiling water with some salt to make the pasta as the package directs. Cook pasta until just before al dente -- it will be cooked a little more in the sauce, so you don't want to overcook or it'll become too soft.
2. In a medium saucepan with a heavy bottom, start frying the bacon. When nearly crisp, add the garlic and saute together for a minute, until the bacon is crisp. Remove from heat.
3. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Add the whipping cream, milk, cheese, and parsley. Stir until combined.
4. When the pasta is almost ready, place the pan with the bacon mixture back onto low to medium heat. Add the chicken.
5. Using tongs or similar, add the cooked spaghetti directly on top of the chicken, without straining. The pasta water it brings over is good, as it's starchy and will help with thickening the sauce.
6. Pour the cream mixture into the pan with the spaghetti. Gently mix everything together, until the sauce has thickened (this will go a LOT faster if you use heavy whipping cream; if you don't, just be patient, it WILL thicken) and the meat is well distributed. Do NOT heat so high that the sauce boils; this will cause it to separate and will be pretty much disgusting and inedible.
7. Taste it; you may find that the salt from the bacon is enough to season the dish. If not, use salt to taste.

Note: Giada serves her carbonara with some crushed walnut sprinkled over the top; this is intriguing but I haven't yet tried it.

Friday Dinner: Stuffed Zucchini

Tonight's dinner was inspired by a recipe posted by kay on LJ: stuffed zucchini!

When I saw it on food_porn, it appealed to me immediately because I loved stuffed things. It's nearly inevitable. Stuff something, and it will seem 10x more appetizing to me. I guess I'm just a freak that way. I knew it would also appeal to Trix, because she loves squash.



The basic idea is very simple: halve a zucchini, scoop out its middle, then fill it with your choice of ingredients. The great thing about this dish is how improvisational it can (and really should) be, enabling you to use up the last bits and pieces of whatever you've got in your fridge. It's also very open to an interpretation of flavors; kay on LJ uses curry powder in hers, I didn't (after my week+ of eating Indian food, I wanted something different).

I almost don't want to provide a recipe, because making it exactly as I did if you don't already have the ingredients on hand might prove time consuming and thus not worth the effort. I will just so you have a guideline to follow. However, the ultimate ingredients should be based on what you have and like. The beauty of this dish is how elegant -- and yet quick -- it can be.

Originally I was going to make two stuffed zucchini (four stuffed halves), but a late lunch at Red Robin (in which I ate my entire burger AND extra fries -- never, ever eat late, you always overeat) nixed that plan. I ended up making two stuffed halves, with the rest of the filling saved for another time.



Stuffed Zucchini

Ingredients

• 2 zucchini, halved (you can choose to trim the ends or not)
• 2 slices of cooked bacon, crispy
• 3/4 cup buttermilk mashed potatoes
• 2-3 tbsp finely crumbled feta cheese
• 1-2 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 Roma tomato, diced
• 1/2 red onion, diced
• 1 clove of garlic, minced
• salt to taste
• dash of parsley flakes

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.
2. Heat the olive oil in a small sauce pan. When it's hot, add the onions. Cook until they're wilted and starting to brown, about 5 minutes.
3. Add the garlic and saute for a couple minutes more. Transfer the mixture to a medium-sized bowl.
4. Slice the zucchini in half as evenly as you can. Using a spoon, scoop out the insides, being careful not to go too deep -- you want the remainder to be whole, so they can be used as 'boats.'
5. Take a bit or all of what you've scooped out and chop it. Toss it into the bowl with the onion mixture.
6. To the bowl add the diced tomato, feta cheese, mashed potatoes (cold or warmed -- I just used cold), and bacon by crumbling it in. Mix well. Add salt to taste, a pinch or two should do it since the bacon is already salty.
7. Arrange the zucchini 'boats' in a baking dish. Stuff them with the filling -- be generous, as it'll not only taste and look better, but you should have plenty to go around.
8. Bake for about 30 minutes so that it's nicely browned and slightly crispy on top. (Alternatively you could bake for 20 minutes then broil them for a few minutes.)
9. Garnish with some parsley flakes on top and serve immediately.

Donut Peaches & Bacon

We're in the midst of peach season, but it wasn't until this last weekend that I saw these scrumptious gems:



I love peaches in general, but white-fleshed ones are my favorite, and of those, nothing tops the donut, or Saturn, peach. Peaches are native to China, and the "flat peach" is no exception -- but lucky for me, they're commercially grown in Central California and Washington. Though they aren't a new fruit, I didn't have one, or even know of their existence, until a few summers ago when I sampled one at Pike Place Market. I was, needless to say, blown away by their deliciousness!

If you've never had one, you're missing out. Donut peaches have very little fuzz, with tender white flesh that is unbelievably sweet, due to being low in acid. They can be quite small -- in fact, until I found these this weekend, I had never seen them this large.



For dinner tonight I used some leftover ingredients to make a shrimp and mushroom egg white omelette topped with cheese. I should have taken the time to pre-sauté the mushrooms, as the omelette came out a bit watery (but good nonetheless).

I also fried up a slice --cut in half -- of the bacon from Wooly Pigs, which was delicious. (Warning: Gratuitous bacon shot below.)



I was a little bit perturbed by how much bacon grease resulted from that one slice of bacon, but thrilled at the same time. I know, I'm such a contradictory person. It certainly didn't stop me from getting out a new jar in order to save the drippings (I have another jar of bacon drippings from "normal" bacon; I wanted to have a separate jar for the Wooly Pigs bacon). For those of you who read my blog post about lard and might be wondering, bacon drippings do not fall into the category of "the good kind of lard," as it is typically cured using sodium nitrate, which has been linked to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. "Uncured" bacon is available (Trader Joe's has a very good one), but the reason that's in quotes is because it just means the bacon hasn't been cured in the traditional way using added sodium nitrate, and is instead cured with some combination of salt, lactic acid starter culture and celery juice, which has natural sodium nitrate. >.> Yeah. So, it's kinda sorta the same thing. Totally uncured bacon would actually be called pork belly, which is delicious in Korean BBQ. But that's another subject.

Okay, pork obsession aside. Back to the matter at hand: tonight's dinner. I finished off with a juicy, sweet donut peach that was perfectly ripe. That leaves me with 3 to devour in the coming days. I have to say, I'm not a hater of cooked fruit; in fact, I quite like it depending on the dessert, but a donut peach should never, ever be cooked. That would be a damn waste.