Makin' Bacon? Easy Peasy!

People who deny the facts of evolution completely puzzle me. Even putting aside the fossil record, DNA evidence and untold hours of programming on public television (Have you pledged yet?) do these people ever look around them? Stuff is changing all the time, for heaven's sake.

Cured and ready to smoke.

And I'm not even talking about the famous example of the beaks of Darwin's finches on the Galapagos Islands, where "an immigrant first settled on one of the islands [and] it would undoubtedly be exposed to different conditions in the different islands (where) it would have to compete with a different set of organisms. ... Then, natural selection would probably favor different varieties in the different islands."

You don't have to look any further than this blog, which in geologic time has only existed for a millionth of a nanosecond, but it has evolved from a simple food blog with restaurant reviews, farmers’ market reports and recipes to a forum for discussion of issues about our food system, from the fields to our plates. And the recipes have changed, too, as I've learned more and tweaked them to fit the way we're eating now.

In the smoker.

Take Dave's bacon recipe. On the recommendation of a friend, I bought him Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing, considered the primer for those interested in learning about cured meat. In the five years since he cured and smoked his first pork belly, he's adjusted it to his own tastes, to the point where we have a hard time stooping to store-bought because even the most highly-touted examples simply don't measure up.

So if you're at all interested, it's incredibly easy. The only special equipment required is curing salt, large zip-lock plastic bags, a charcoal grill or smoker and a thermometer, then a week for the curing. Seriously, that's it.

Done.

And, of course, Dave's notes, which are here in his own words:

"The bacon recipe is based on the Michael Ruhlman recipe, with a couple of changes. I use half as much kosher salt as the recipe calls for—a quarter cup makes it way too salty. I use Diamond Crystal kosher salt (I understand that Morton’s is a bit different). I use a little more garlic than called for—8 to 10 cloves, maybe. I don’t think I’ve ever made it with the optional thyme. I have made it with the optional juniper berries once or twice, but most of the time not. I usually make 12 or 13 pounds at a time, so I double the recipe as I’ve altered it. I usually have two pieces of belly, each rubbed and placed into the big plastic bags in the fridge on a Saturday or Sunday for smoking the next weekend. I turn them once a day. I put it in my Weber Smokey Mountain smoker, on the grates over a water pan, at a low temperature—I try to keep it about 200-225 degrees—over Kingsford with four or five chunks of soaked maple or cherry wood (not too much or the bacon’ll be too smoky and bitter). I smoke it until it’s about 145 degrees internally, usually about three or four hours."

As this changes—and evolves—I'll keep you posted!

The Best Bacon Ever

I'd been working on getting Dave to smoke some pork belly for at least a year. It's not that he didn't want to, or was just being intransigent about taking his wife's suggestion. After all, he has a full-time job that supports his family, and any free time has been subsumed by a passion for developing his own sourdough starter, using it to make some fine breads, English muffins and biscuits.

Ready to cure in the fridge.

And that's not to mention the cocktail research, which these days is focused on the subject of bourbons and bitters. But after buying him a couple of books on home charcuterie and sending links to online articles on the subject, I could see his interest shifting to a more active state. Then came the day that he announced he'd ordered five pounds of pork belly from New Seasons and needed to go on a hunt for curing salt.

If we were the types to plan ahead, there are myriad online retailers who carry this special combination of table salt and sodium nitrite or nitrate, dyed pink to distinguish it from other salts since it's apparently quite lethal. But because we subscribe to the last-minute school of life, a little research led us to The Meadow, Mark Bitterman's shrine to NaCl. Fortunately it's also close by, so we could run over and get back while the sourdough Dave was working on that day (I didn't say he gave up his infatuation) finished rising.

A sample of the finished product.

The only problem we ran into was finding a bag that would fit the five-pound slab, since it needed to cure in the fridge for a week. Now, we could have cut it in half and slipped it into two one-gallon bags, but that would have reduced the impressive feat of slapping the whole monster on the grill. So not being able to find the 2-gallon bag called for in the recipe, we used a large size oven bag sold for turkeys.

Other than that it was rubbing the slab with the salt mixture, putting it in the fridge in the duct tape-sealed bag and turning it daily for a week. Smoking took about three hours, and then we cooled it, whacked it up into one pound chunks and put it int the freezer. A sample we fried up on the spot indicated a deeply but not overly smoky belly that one volunteer said was some of the best he's ever had. I'd say it was definitely worth waiting for.

Home-Cured Bacon

Adapted from Michael Ruhlman's Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing

• Order five pounds of fresh pork belly from your grocery store, the pork guy at your farmers market, or from a local butcher shop.


• Buy a box of 2-gallon zip-top bags if you don’t have a container big enough to hold the belly or use oven bags meant for turkey.

Mix the following together in a small bowl:
2 oz. (1/4 c. Morton or Diamond Crystal coarse kosher) salt
2 tsp. pink curing salt #1
4 Tbsp. coarsely ground black pepper
4 bay leaves, crumbled
1 tsp. freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 c. brown sugar, honey or maple syrup
5 cloves garlic, smashed with the flat side of a chef’s knife
2 Tbsp. juniper berries, lightly crushed (optional)
5 to 10 sprigs fresh thyme (optional)




Put the pork belly in the zip-top bag or in an oven bag. Rub the salt and spice mixture all over the belly. Close the bag (if using the oven bag Dave recommends black duct tape for the aesthetics) and stick it in the refrigerator for seven days (get your hands in there and give the spices another good rubbing around midway through). After seven days, take it out of the fridge, rinse off all the seasonings under cold water and pat it dry.

For cooking in the oven:
Put it on a sheet tray and put it in the oven (put it on a rack on a sheet tray if you have one) and turn the oven on to 200°. (if you want to preheat the oven, that’s fine, too). Leave it in the oven for 90 minutes (or, if you want to measure the internal temperature, until it reaches 150 degrees F.). Let it cool, cut it into usable chunks (we did approx. 1-lb. chunks) and refrigerate or freeze it until you’re ready to cook it.

For cooking in a smoker:
Build a fire from charcoal or hickory chunks. When the temperature inside the smoker reaches 125-150°, put the pork belly on the top rack. Maintain the 125-150° temperature inside the smoker for approximately 3-3 1/2 hrs. or until the internal temperature of the belly reaches 150°. Remove and cool. Slice into usable chunks and refrigerate or freeze.

Touching Up My Roots: Tuna Casserole

What to do with all those mushrooms I collected on my trip to the mountain, especially since they really don't last long in the refrigerator and needed to be dealt with quickly? After sautéing a few for snacking on while I cleaned the rest, I took Michael Ruhlman's advice and loaded them in a roasting pan, drizzled them with a tiny bit of olive oil and a sprinkle of salt and put them in the oven to roast.

What came out was a pan full of deep golden mushrooms swimming in a broth of the liquid that had seeped out of them (top photo). Realizing that chanterelle broth was probably not readily available on the shelf at the store, I drained off the liquid, chopped up the mushrooms and bagged them for storing in the freezer.

I had a cup or so of mushrooms left over and pondered the best and highest use of this treasure, this wonder from the wilds. And that's when it hit me. A dish from my childhood, something comforting and full of personal meaning.

The solution.

"Tuna noodle casserole!" I crowed. I've mentioned my love of that 50s-era "convenience" food before, the one my mother made practically every Friday night of my childhood, right?

But mine wasn't going to be a casserole made from a processed cream-like substance with little brown bits floating around in it and with shreds of big brand, mercury-laced chunk light tuna, no sir. I'd make the cream sauce from the roasted mushroom broth and those golden mushrooms and with a tin of low-mercury, line-caught and Monterey Bay Aquarium-approved Oregon albacore. And, since I know you'll ask, no, there were no Kettle salt'n'pepper potato chips crumbled on top—I wasn't brought up that lucky!

Chanterelle and Oregon Albacore Casserole

2 Tbsp. butter
2 Tbsp. flour
2 c. milk or cream or a combination of both
1 c. mushroom stock, preferably from the roasted chanterelles, below
1 c. (approx.) roasted chanterelle mushrooms, roughly chopped
1 6-oz. can Oregon albacore tuna (drain and reserve juice)
1 lb. dried pasta

Heat oven to 350°.

Put pot of water for pasta on to boil. Meanwhile, melt butter in medium-sized saucepan over medium heat. Remove from heat and stir in flour until thoroughly combined. Replace on medium heat and cook, stirring constantly, until raw taste of flour is gone. Add milk and continue stirring until sauce thickens. Add mushroom stock, mushrooms and reserved juice from tuna and heat. (Because most Oregon albacore is packed fresh then cooked, the juice in the tin is from the tuna itself. If using albacore packed in water or oil, do not add to sauce.) Add salt and pepper to taste. Remove sauce from heat, stir in chunked albacore.

When pot of water boils, add pasta and cook till al dente. Drain. Mix pasta and sauce and pour into casserole (add crumbled potato chips if you must). Bake 30 min. until top is browned.

Note: After adding the mushrooms and mushroom broth to the sauce (but before adding tuna juice or tuna), you basically have a mushroom soup. Add salt and pepper to taste and call it dinner.