Head Scratchin’ Bacon

dorisandjilly — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 13:05:28 +0000

C’mon. Surely I can figure out what to do with homemade bacon. I mean, it’s bacon. It’s salty, fatty, and comes from a pig. What’s not to like?

A lot, it turns out. I’ve been trying to come to terms with the fact that I wasn’t thrilled about my homemade bacon since mid-February, the Charcutepalooza deadline. (You’ll have to take my word for it that the bacon itself was completed on time). Having both missed the deadline and made lackluster meat, I just about threw in the towel, but since then, I’ve taken comfort in the bacon befuddlement of my fellow Charcutepaloozers.

Oh, my bacon, my bacon! What went wrong? For starters, the pork belly had nipples. Now, seeing as how I grew up around hogs, I don’t know why this came as such as shock, but it did. And then there was the sheer quantity of salt. Then I skipped the nitrites. And last but not least, the fat.

Now, this wasn’t just your everyday fatty bacon. Look closely at that picture up top. Do you see any meat on that fat, whatsoever? No. I didn’t think so. It’s one thing to eat pre-sliced strips of bacon. Somehow, when it’s in pieces, you don’t necessarily notice that most bacon is at least two-thirds fat. When you’re looking at an 10″ x 6″ slab of pork belly with an inch of fat on top, on the other hand, it’s pretty hard to miss.

And guess what? Fatty bacon is salty bacon, as I learned from Grow and Resist‘s post about her nearly identical challenges with the project. And since she explained her disappointment in nitrite-free bacon so well, I’ll spare you my version. Let’s just say that it doesn’t taste like bacon.

What it does taste like is salty, roasted, pork belly. Once I wrapped my head around that, I was in a better position to figure out what to do with it. I hacked it into about a dozen 4-ounce chunks, tossed them into a Ziplock, and threw the whole thing in the freezer. Because it’s so, so, so fatty, there’s no need to thaw it before cutting it up—if anything, it’s easier to cut when it’s frozen. Since then, I’ve used some in baked beans, some in a Spanish rice pilaf, and some in a lentil stew. It’s surprisingly good in stir-fried Asian noodles. Since it’s nearly unadulterated fat, it makes a great addition to venison sausage.

So: all in all, not a bacon disaster, but not a runaway success. I may yet try again with nitrites. We’ll see.

How to avoid a Dal FAIL

dorisandjilly — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:55:48 +0000

Last week I tried to make my favorite yellow split pea dal in my crockpot. It was an utter FAIL. Really and truly nasty—by the time the peas were finally edible (sort of), they had turned a disgusting brownish green color, which is why I’m skipping the photo. However, dear readers, I want to spare you the same miserable experience.

My problem, it turns out, is that I added turnip greens at the beginning, right along with the split peas, the potatoes, etc. Although we don’t think of them as such, it turns out that turnip greens are quite high in acid. The acid, in turn, makes it difficult for the split peas to absorb water. How difficult? Well. Let me tell you. These split peas—pre-soaked, mind you!—were still hard as rocks after 8 hours in the crockpot, at which point I turned it to low and we went out for pizza at our local brew pub instead. I let it cook overnight. The peas were still mostly hard the next morning, but by now the mixture had started to turn an alarming color. Determined not to waste food, I decided to pressure cook the whole thing. Five minutes at 15 pounds pressure did virtually nothing to the peas. After another 10 minutes, they were starting to soften, but still not done. Finally, after another 10 minutes at 15 pounds of pressure, they were finally soft enough to eat. They were also not very pretty.

The end product was edible, sort of, if you smother a bowl of the stuff with yogurt and chutney. But it is not something I will repeat.

The lesson? Only add acidic things (tomatoes, greens, lemon juice, etc.) to legumes after they’re cooked. This is the logic that explains, among other things, why recipes for baked beans usually either have you start with cooked beans or include a cooking time of several hours. Great mysteries revealed!

Now, to be honest, I’ve often had trouble getting beans soft in the crockpot, which is one of oh-so-many reasons I usually prefer the pressure cooker instead. How does this work, exactly? What tricks do you use?

Doris and Jilly Cook » FAIL

Head Scratchin’ Bacon

How to avoid a Dal FAIL