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Feb. 11th, 2008 08:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickI may have been insufficiently effusive in praise of the home-made bacon the other day. I fed some to cousin Heather and she seemed to feel that it was quite tasty.
Heather had the excellent idea of pairing the bacon with actual food products. (Roasted-chickpea stuff and steamed broccoli, if anyone really wants to know.) That cut the salt a bit and let the bacony goodness shine through. I also discovered that the two or three pieces that are the "edge" slices on the pork belly have rather more salt than the pieces more toward the middle of the bacon. The edge slices (about the first half-inch) are really salty. After that, they're almost right. There is rather a lot of bacony goodness, here, though I haven't tried the apple-smoked bacon yet, just the hickory.
As a review for the less-attentive readers among you, I did the curing procedure as per the beer people's blog post and smoked the bacon in a smoker that belongs to Dad's wife's son Larry, who is quite the dab hand when it comes to outdoor meat-n-heat events. The smoker had a separate chamber for charcoal-n-wood that fed into the meat-smoking chamber, so that I could smoke the bacon without cooking it too quickly. Neat!
I did some reading on the subject (When have I ever not done "some reading" on projects? It's a feature, that.) and determined that smoke does not flavor meat really well if (a) the meat is too thick (b) the smoke is too hot (c) you're trying to do this in fifteen minutes. So, I kept the temperature fairly low (there's a gauge on the meat-part of the smoker and I also had a meat thermometer) and I took my time. Four and a half hours later, I had very hickory-flavored bacon at 150 degrees F.
I used a smallish fire, maybe fifteen bricks of charcoal at a time. I don't like the way the match-light charcoal tastes (yes, there is a difference) so I used regular not-match-light Kingsford for the charcoal part, said charcoal purchased at WalMart, an annoying and encroachful big box retailer that nonetheless understands the desire of some of its customers to grill outdoors in February in Pennsylvania. At the same locale, I bought lighter fluid for the charcoal. I lit the charcoal and let it burn for thirty minutes before I put the meat on the smoker b/c I don't like petroleum distillates in my meat. Nasty petroleum distillates. Nasty.
For the wood part, I did not buy wood for making flavored smoke. That's what city people do. There are two nice-sized hickory trees along the power line between my house and the lodge. I whacked some branches (green wood) off the hickory trees for flavoring the smoke. Someone before me had whacked branches off the hickory trees because I could see the lopper marks of old, possibly for smoke purposes and possibly also to keep them from hitting anyone in the face during mowing of the grass. Anyway, the trees are big and healthy and there are a lot of suitable branches so I didn't feel too damn bad about taking a couple of them. (Do not fear a tragedy of the commons going down on the hickory trees. Eventually the remaining branches will be out of reach and we will turn to more accessible trees for grill purposes. There will still be a hell of a lot of the hickory trees left at that point -- they're full-size, real trees.) Similarly, I got the apple wood for the apple-wood-bacon from our apple trees up in the orchard. There, I pruned the halt and lame branches and also the strong vertical leaders so's to create a more healthy, open vase shape on the apple trees.
At the last, I was ready to smoke. I put some wood bits on the charcoals. They started to smoke profusely. Yay! I put the meat on the meat racks in the meatspace of the smoker. I closed up all the vents and things and still the smoke poured out of the smoker arrangement. Oh, well. I spent four and a half hours replenishing wood bits and charcoal as needful and maintaining the temperature of the thing. It was not particularly exciting and I had to keep fighting the urge to consume a malt beverage (or three) and adjust my crotch. (Possibly this was fumes from the smoke? Not sure.)
Anyway, I repeated the process for the apple bacon only instead of using hickory wood, I used apple wood. It was not any more exciting the second time but it was a little faster because everything was already hot and because I let the temperature creep up through inattention and diminishing daylight hours. Bad user!
When I got done with the smoking thing, I was going to slice the bacon with a meat slicer except this plan fell apart when I could not locate the meat slicer for love or money. The meat slicer USED to live in the lodge, next to the microwave oven in the big downstairs kitchen. It was not there. Jackie said it was there at the picnic, so apparently it hasn't been missing for long. It was not under the microwave countertop. It was not under the L-shaped bowling-alley countertop. It was not in the pantry shelving or on the pantry floor. It was not on top of the fridge or in any of the white metal cabinets. I have absolutely no fucking idea where the damn meat slicer is but it is not, I say, not in the downstairs kitchen at the lodge. Or maybe I'm just blind and would not know a meat slicer if it were about to bite me. That's also a possibility.
As I was unable to locate the meat slicer, I called brother-the-younger to see if he knew where it was. He did not, but suggested that a meat slicer, even a slightly-used one, would make a Damn Fine Present if I knew anyone who had a lot of beef around. (Brother-the-younger yearly buys half-a-cow, so this was a hint about as broad as my ass will be after eating nearly eight pounds of tasty bacon.) He suggested I try shopping at Wal-Mart. Before anyone in the studio audience goes off to Wal-Mart to buy a meat slicer, let me head you off with the helpful information that I have been to Wal-Mart looking for a meat slicer and I did not find one there. (Perhaps we should send someone other than me to locate meat slicers? But, no, I asked the staff at Wal-Mart and they said that they did not carry meat slicers. Stupid Wal-Mart.)
I sliced the bacon with a knife. This was somewhat anticlimactic, given that I'd had a head of steam up to play with the meat slicer. Still, you do what you gotta do.
The next time I cook dinner for myself, I am to make family Red Rice with The Bacon. Also, must make the rounds and distribute samples of The Bacon to interested parties. I've packaged and frozen reasonable amounts of same so that they will last until I get them distributed to people. Due to the can't-really-ship-it nature of bacon, distribution is limited to folks who are less than two hours away.
Heather will get some for the pork thing we're doing next weekend. Brother-the-younger will get some b/c he shared his apple-beverage-project and also made the inquiries to get me oxtails as part of his half-a-cow. (It turns out that if you buy half-a-cow, you can elect to get some of the more icky bits. It's a pick-n-choose thing, a smorgasboard of cow offal. You can have the liver, or not. You can have the tongue, or not. You can get the tail or not, the brains or not, etc. I'm not entirely sure if there is a checklist or a form or what, but the purchaser has to express a desire because the default setting for the half-a-cow purchase is that you only get "normal" pieces of cow.) The horse people, of course, will get some so that they can tell me how it isn't a patch on the bacon they used to get in the old days when bacon was really good, not like this watered-down modern stuff. M. at the office wants to try some to see if she can eat it without getting sick (she's allergic to a lot of the chemicals in "real" bacon). Anybody I'm forgetting? Oh, and Mom will get some next time I go down for opera.
Heather had the excellent idea of pairing the bacon with actual food products. (Roasted-chickpea stuff and steamed broccoli, if anyone really wants to know.) That cut the salt a bit and let the bacony goodness shine through. I also discovered that the two or three pieces that are the "edge" slices on the pork belly have rather more salt than the pieces more toward the middle of the bacon. The edge slices (about the first half-inch) are really salty. After that, they're almost right. There is rather a lot of bacony goodness, here, though I haven't tried the apple-smoked bacon yet, just the hickory.
As a review for the less-attentive readers among you, I did the curing procedure as per the beer people's blog post and smoked the bacon in a smoker that belongs to Dad's wife's son Larry, who is quite the dab hand when it comes to outdoor meat-n-heat events. The smoker had a separate chamber for charcoal-n-wood that fed into the meat-smoking chamber, so that I could smoke the bacon without cooking it too quickly. Neat!
I did some reading on the subject (When have I ever not done "some reading" on projects? It's a feature, that.) and determined that smoke does not flavor meat really well if (a) the meat is too thick (b) the smoke is too hot (c) you're trying to do this in fifteen minutes. So, I kept the temperature fairly low (there's a gauge on the meat-part of the smoker and I also had a meat thermometer) and I took my time. Four and a half hours later, I had very hickory-flavored bacon at 150 degrees F.
I used a smallish fire, maybe fifteen bricks of charcoal at a time. I don't like the way the match-light charcoal tastes (yes, there is a difference) so I used regular not-match-light Kingsford for the charcoal part, said charcoal purchased at WalMart, an annoying and encroachful big box retailer that nonetheless understands the desire of some of its customers to grill outdoors in February in Pennsylvania. At the same locale, I bought lighter fluid for the charcoal. I lit the charcoal and let it burn for thirty minutes before I put the meat on the smoker b/c I don't like petroleum distillates in my meat. Nasty petroleum distillates. Nasty.
For the wood part, I did not buy wood for making flavored smoke. That's what city people do. There are two nice-sized hickory trees along the power line between my house and the lodge. I whacked some branches (green wood) off the hickory trees for flavoring the smoke. Someone before me had whacked branches off the hickory trees because I could see the lopper marks of old, possibly for smoke purposes and possibly also to keep them from hitting anyone in the face during mowing of the grass. Anyway, the trees are big and healthy and there are a lot of suitable branches so I didn't feel too damn bad about taking a couple of them. (Do not fear a tragedy of the commons going down on the hickory trees. Eventually the remaining branches will be out of reach and we will turn to more accessible trees for grill purposes. There will still be a hell of a lot of the hickory trees left at that point -- they're full-size, real trees.) Similarly, I got the apple wood for the apple-wood-bacon from our apple trees up in the orchard. There, I pruned the halt and lame branches and also the strong vertical leaders so's to create a more healthy, open vase shape on the apple trees.
At the last, I was ready to smoke. I put some wood bits on the charcoals. They started to smoke profusely. Yay! I put the meat on the meat racks in the meatspace of the smoker. I closed up all the vents and things and still the smoke poured out of the smoker arrangement. Oh, well. I spent four and a half hours replenishing wood bits and charcoal as needful and maintaining the temperature of the thing. It was not particularly exciting and I had to keep fighting the urge to consume a malt beverage (or three) and adjust my crotch. (Possibly this was fumes from the smoke? Not sure.)
Anyway, I repeated the process for the apple bacon only instead of using hickory wood, I used apple wood. It was not any more exciting the second time but it was a little faster because everything was already hot and because I let the temperature creep up through inattention and diminishing daylight hours. Bad user!
When I got done with the smoking thing, I was going to slice the bacon with a meat slicer except this plan fell apart when I could not locate the meat slicer for love or money. The meat slicer USED to live in the lodge, next to the microwave oven in the big downstairs kitchen. It was not there. Jackie said it was there at the picnic, so apparently it hasn't been missing for long. It was not under the microwave countertop. It was not under the L-shaped bowling-alley countertop. It was not in the pantry shelving or on the pantry floor. It was not on top of the fridge or in any of the white metal cabinets. I have absolutely no fucking idea where the damn meat slicer is but it is not, I say, not in the downstairs kitchen at the lodge. Or maybe I'm just blind and would not know a meat slicer if it were about to bite me. That's also a possibility.
As I was unable to locate the meat slicer, I called brother-the-younger to see if he knew where it was. He did not, but suggested that a meat slicer, even a slightly-used one, would make a Damn Fine Present if I knew anyone who had a lot of beef around. (Brother-the-younger yearly buys half-a-cow, so this was a hint about as broad as my ass will be after eating nearly eight pounds of tasty bacon.) He suggested I try shopping at Wal-Mart. Before anyone in the studio audience goes off to Wal-Mart to buy a meat slicer, let me head you off with the helpful information that I have been to Wal-Mart looking for a meat slicer and I did not find one there. (Perhaps we should send someone other than me to locate meat slicers? But, no, I asked the staff at Wal-Mart and they said that they did not carry meat slicers. Stupid Wal-Mart.)
I sliced the bacon with a knife. This was somewhat anticlimactic, given that I'd had a head of steam up to play with the meat slicer. Still, you do what you gotta do.
The next time I cook dinner for myself, I am to make family Red Rice with The Bacon. Also, must make the rounds and distribute samples of The Bacon to interested parties. I've packaged and frozen reasonable amounts of same so that they will last until I get them distributed to people. Due to the can't-really-ship-it nature of bacon, distribution is limited to folks who are less than two hours away.
Heather will get some for the pork thing we're doing next weekend. Brother-the-younger will get some b/c he shared his apple-beverage-project and also made the inquiries to get me oxtails as part of his half-a-cow. (It turns out that if you buy half-a-cow, you can elect to get some of the more icky bits. It's a pick-n-choose thing, a smorgasboard of cow offal. You can have the liver, or not. You can have the tongue, or not. You can get the tail or not, the brains or not, etc. I'm not entirely sure if there is a checklist or a form or what, but the purchaser has to express a desire because the default setting for the half-a-cow purchase is that you only get "normal" pieces of cow.) The horse people, of course, will get some so that they can tell me how it isn't a patch on the bacon they used to get in the old days when bacon was really good, not like this watered-down modern stuff. M. at the office wants to try some to see if she can eat it without getting sick (she's allergic to a lot of the chemicals in "real" bacon). Anybody I'm forgetting? Oh, and Mom will get some next time I go down for opera.
