Bacon and eggs.

A week or so ago I tried my hand at making bacon using belly strips which came from the half pig from the local farm and a water, salt and black treacle wet cure I found on the Cottage Smallholder blog.  The bacon was tasty but perhaps a little fatty and maybe just a tad on the salty side.

I decided to have a go using back loin and reducing the salt just a little bit.  So I got a small-ish piece of back loin and used 80g of salt instead of 100g.  I also got The Builder to sharpen my carving knife to within an inch of its life!  After 4 days I took the chunk of loin from the salt and treacle bath, patted it dry and put it in the freezer for 40 minutes in the hope that that would aid the slicing process. It did, together with the nicely sharp carving knife - but if I'm going to carry on with this activity, I may need to invest in a proper slicer.

The end result looked like this:

Home cured bacon and eggs from our hens

The bacon was very nice, but not quite flavoured enough.  I think I need to add a little more salt and a little more treacle (to offset the drop in the salt).  I am also wondering what would happen if I sliced the pork before putting it into the curing bath. Plus, I am giving a bit of thought to trying a dry cure and then steeping the pork in apple juice and honey or treacle.  But I think I'll master the wet cure first and then experiment!

Saturday breakfast:

We didn't grow the mushrooms, or bake the bread for the toast!!

We had some of the "streaky" bacon with poached eggs on Sunday.  It was saltier than the first lot was had (but not as fatty because I had cut some of the fat off and also butterflied the slices ). But I think that might have been the way I cooked it.

It's quite fun, messing about with making bacon. I must do some more reading!