Making bacon and how it's made

Lots of people who move from England move to another country and just want there life to carry on as before but in a foreign land.

Everything you want you can get fresh so wanting things from home is not a option for me. I am more than happy with what is available fresh for me to choose from. Although i do like certain things from the UK i can do without them. I do like tomato sauce so i made my own and very good it is. I like bacon and this is what this topic is about.

Bacon just what you need with eggs for breakfast, well as an ex butcher i have now made my own Bacon. I spent a few days reading about curing bacon from various websites and one in particular the River Cottage site by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall from the TV series River Cottage. I went to the local butcher here in Gois and got my self a nice peace of Belly Pork as i like Belly Pork and it makes good bacon. I took the bones out and kept them to roast them later. I carefully skinned the Belly and then put it to one side so as to get the Cure made.

I mixed up the Cure and rubbed it into the Pork as well as i could and then placed it into a plastic bag and got as much air out of the bag as i could. The cure is made up from Salt, Dark brown sugar, Ground black pepper and last some fresh Bay leaves. There is a Bay tree not far from me so i used Fresh leaves and chopped them up finely.

The effect of the cure makes the belly dry out and a liquid comes out and into the bag. It's this liquid that has to be changed after the first day. At day two and three the amount of liquid that has to be thrown away gets less and by day four there should be no liquid left to through out.

Now take the bacon as that's now what the belly has become out of the bag and wash under cold water until all the cure has been washed away. Now dry the bacon and it will benefit from hanging for a day or two in a cool dry place. Thing is could i wait that long to see how it's got on this being my first attempt at making bacon. Probably i will slice a few pieces to try and then hang the rest. The bacon needs to be hung using a mesh cover to allow it to breath and for the outside to dry out and cure.

Below is a couple of links to a some articles about bacon and did you know that bacon made in a factory is as much as 50% water. Well mine will have no water. When you cook bacon and you get white stuff coming out as you cook that's added water

You may need to Copy and Paste the links into your browser but it is worth a look.

200g Salt
50g Dark brown sugar
5g Ground black pepper.
Chop up some fresh Bay leaves.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2011/jul/27/water-in-bacon-new-rasher-regulations

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2006/nov/11/recipes.pork