Thursday, August 14, 2008

Bacon Report 2: Revenge of the return of the son of the pig

This batch was mostly experimental -- like a mad scientist on the verge of bringing the monster to life. I sort of expected something awesome. What I got was fine.... but it wasn't the Frankenstein monster. Maybe next batch.

I had it in the back of my mind that I would find the bacon elixir of life itself and present it something like my favorite food porn. But alas, dear pork, it was not to be.

Not that there was anything wrong with any of the dear baconion slabs. They just weren't The One.
But, just to tell the tale, here is a snippet. Not quite food porn. Just a snippet.

The cure:

The smoke:

The fry:

The goo: (Julia Childs would take you outside and beat you with a cast iron frying pan if you made home made bacon and didn't save the rendered fat for later.)

The report:
  • Garlic: tasty, but honestly not quite up to the last garlic batch. Still, it was good.
  • Honey: Hmm. This really ended up as a basic sugar cure. They honey really didn't impart any real flavor like maple does. And damn it burns easily. I made the mistake of frying it in a small pan on a small burner and it was pretty burnt. Good, but nothing stellar. Beats Oscar Meyer.
  • Jalepeno: This was where I had my hopes and dreams. Again, its good, but nothing awe inspiring. Jalepeno is fat soluble not water soluble. That was my mistake I think. There were lots of peppers in the mix, but the cure pulls all the water out (and that water is what ends up flavoring the food.) Since the peppers weren't soluble, they didn't do much. I would have done better to use some of my home made chipolte powder instead of fresh jalepenos.
Ah well. Next time.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Since I had the extreme pleasure of sampling your wares, kind sir, please allow me to pontificate:

The Garlic was definitely my favorite. More "garlic-y"?? Well, I don't think more garlic flavor would detract from the tasty-juicy-meltiness that I experienced.

Even kitty Sam thought the Garlic was finger-licking-good!!!

The Honey was tasty (I like bacon a little black, sometimes) but I could barely discern the Honey. Too bad I didn't get to taste the Maple, I'm sure that was awesome!!

The JalapeƱo -- great attempt, but I agree that it didn't get enough of the pepper's flavor in it.