Bacon.

As I posted a week ago, another attempt at home made bacon. A few years ago, I used to make it all the time, but the cost of pork went thro' the roof, and it became uneconomical.

I've a more mature attitude towards the cost since then. Well, if mature is the right word. In the time since back then, I've bought custom goods because tho' I've paid extra, for the little extra I paid I got exactly what I wanted, and because a cornerstone of that has been quality and durability, in the long run it's been cheaper.

So I started making bacon again. It's not cheaper than the floppy wet stuff full of nitrites Bear has been picking up at Tesco's. That's about £3 for 2 x 240g or 0.625 p per gram. For the belly pork I used it was more like 2p per gram from Morrisons. By the time I'd spent money on non-iodised sea-salt, herbs, pepper and brown sugar, it was more like 2.3p

I didn't want to use nitrites. I wanted quick cure, and I have the advantage of a frost free fridge/freezer. Frost free works by drawing the moisture out of the air. That has the disadvantage that if you leave something in too long, it can dry out some- home made sauces and gravies f'rinstance.

Home curing? Perfect. A week of rubbing in the salt-mix every 2-3 days, and the drying action of the fridge, and we have perfect bacon. A quick rinse in cold water to remove excess salt and dabbing dry, and it was spot on.

It's not pink. Pink bacon is the result of the injected nitrites and water. It's kinda grey looking. Being belly pork, it's streaky bacon. But it's just how we want it. It's fiddly cutting it (I have a little cheapo electric circular slicer, £20 from Netto's) and the slices are, ahum, variable. At least with Belly pork, you don't get pretty even slices.

Apparently, there's some special offers on for shoulder pork, which is much leaner, so I'm going to try that this week.

Note about nitrites. If you wanted to hang the meat, nitrites may well be essential. Hanging isn't something you should do when it's warm. Nitrites kill bacteria such as botulism. With spring around the corner, unless you can can hang meat below 4 centigrade, don't bother unless you have a modern frost free fridge with plenty of space below that temperature. Hanging takes months.