And This Little Piggy...

If you know me, then you know my love for pork. It's like the other red meat but cheaper. You can braise it, stew it, roast it, eat it medium rare. The list goes on and on. All the cuts of pork are very similar to that of beef. There's tenderloin, sirloin, shoulder, etc...but there's one thing that a pig has that a cow doesn't--pork belly! "What's so special about that? It's just fat", you say? That's where bacon comes from, duh!

My tattoo 

Bacon is made when a cut of pork is cured for a period of time. The curing process draws moisture out the meat by dry packing it with salt or letting it sit in a brine. In earlier years curing was the only form of preserving food.  The most traditional form of bacon we know today is smoked or half smoked. This is when the bacon is smoked for a short period of time so that you would have to finish it by cooking it. Other forms of bacon like fully smoked bacon (bacon bits) or boiled bacon, do not require cooking. Never heard of boiled bacon? Yeah, there's a reason...yuck!

Here are some tips for cooking bacon.

• Place your bacon in the (cold)pan before putting it on the heat. This will 1) allow you to utilize all of the pan and 2) prevent you from burning yourself. What this does is allows the bacon come up to temperature with the pan as it heats up so you don't get burnt bacon. 
• Keep the fire at a medium to medium high heat. Theres no reason to go full blast with the flame. Remember, slow and steady wins the race. 
• As the fat renders off the bacon, try to remove some of the fat by tilting the pan using a spoon to scoop it out into a bowl. You don't want your bacon to BOIL in its own fat. 
• When the bacon is cooked to your liking, place it on a paper towel on a plate. This will suck up any excess fat leaving your bacon crispy (if that's how you like it).

bien manger

-cwis