What's your favorite way to eat bacon or what do you eat it with?

Originally posted by yeahright

Originally posted by obnoxiouschick
That pizza sounds cool but what is the cream gravy?
would hollandaise sauce do?

Erp. Not for me.

Hollandaise sauce is like hot mayonnaise. Cream gravy is a milk based gravy made with some fat (pan drippings) flour (basically a roux) and milk. Think sausage gravy and biscuits.

oh ok a southern thing
my yankee mind goes to Eggs Benedict for some reason....

The old classic, liver and onions, needs bacon too...

First of all be sure to use calf's liver as beef liver has a funky flavor that just cannot be fully overcome by the bacon and onions.

Using a large skillet cook the bacon first and set aside to drain. Then cook the liver and onions in the bacon drippings. I like to use House Autry chicken coating flour mix to bread the liver. Then I cook it at high heat until just pink on the inside with no blood showing when you prick it with a fork. Be careful not to overcook the liver because that will turn it from tender tasty liver to shoe leather. Just remember, when no blood comes out when you stick it with a fork and the inside is still pink is the ideal for liver of any kind.

Cook the liver on one side until the coating is slightly crisp and browned then flip it over and finish cooking to the instructions above.

Once the liver is done continue cooking the onions until they are well caramelized and put the reserved bacon and the onions on the liver to smother it and enjoy.

Since it's regional
the best (IMHO) seafood bacon combination
the bacon has to be a big piece on top no crumbled bits

Clams casino is a clam "on the halfshell" dish with breadcrumbs and bacon. It originated in Rhode Island in the United States. It is often served as an appetizer in New England and is served in variations nationally.

en.wikipedia.org...

reply to post by happykat39


I don't know .... maybe .... when I get the courage to eat liver.
I know people say it's good for you but ...I should try it at least once.

reply to post by obnoxiouschick


Really the cream gravy completes it. can be made without but just doesn't taste as good. if you use the hand toss dough its like having toast and being able to dip it in your egg yolk or gravy. My mom loved this.

Originally posted by ascension211
reply to post by obnoxiouschick

 

Really the cream gravy completes it. can be made without but just doesn't taste as good. if you use the hand toss dough its like having toast and being able to dip it in your egg yolk or gravy. My mom loved this.

ok I'll try it sometime
I appreciate new cooking ideas
when you do make it again get a pic for me ok thanks

Diced bacon on pizza

I LOVE BLT sandwiches

I love bacon on tunafish or chicken salad sanwiches

But I think my all-time favorite way to eat bacon is to just have a huge pile of it next to a plate of about 4 or 5 sunny-side-up eggs, and I use the nice runny yolks as a sauce for dipping the bacon. Yum Yum. And don't forget some toast on the side for bacon and egg sanwiches with the remaining whites.

reply to post by obnoxiouschick


In the summer, I love to make fresh BLT's with my beef-steak tomato's cut thick and slightly warmed on some rye bread, lots of crisp bacon... omg, now I'm hungry lol

reply to post by obnoxiouschick


I wrap bacon around bite size pineapple and fry it in oil and soy sauce. Good stuff!

Spinach and Bacon Quiche

Ingredients:

6 large eggs, beaten
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
Salt and pepper
2 cups chopped fresh baby spinach, packed
1 pound bacon, cooked and crumbled
1 1/2 cups shredded Swiss cheese
1 (9-inch) refrigerated pie crust, fitted to a 9-inch glass pie plate

www.foodnetwork.com...

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Combine the eggs, cream, salt, and pepper in a food processor or blender. Layer the spinach, bacon, and cheese in the bottom of the pie crust, then pour the egg mixture on top. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes until the egg mixture is set. Cut into 8 wedges.

Ok.. So I have to know...

Does anyone here make their own bacon? Do they know the cut of the pig? What are your recipes? Do you smoke the bacon full cooked, half cooked, cold smoked? What is your brine recipe, pre smoke and post smoke rub? How long do you smoke and at what temperatures?

Just to get the ball rolling =D I can share my good friends experiences/tips on this who I see all the time with pork and other meats

reply to post by Philippines


A portion of the pork belly is used to make bacon. The rind (skin) is left on until after it is already bacon. Then, depending on where you buy it, you can get it whole with the skin, sliced down to the skin, or as individual slices with or without the rind.

The curing is done in one of two main ways. The first is a salt cure in which the bacon is salted down and allowed to give up a lot of its moisture to the salt. The second main way is to use brown sugar in place of the salt. Once it is properly cured it is ready to cook and eat or you can smoke it with any one of several popular woods like maple or pecan. If it is smoked in a high temperature smoker, as opposed to a smokehouse where the temperature is generally lower to give a milder smoke, flavor the meat can be eaten as is since the high temperature smoking will also cook it.

The Smithfield process is completely different and produces a bacon with a unique flavor. The Smithfield process is used mainly on whole hams or the portions of shank or butt but can be used on bacon too. It is done by hanging it in a special cloth wrapper in a very closely temperature and humidity controlled room after a short soaking with brine. While the flavor of a Smithfield cured meat is unique it is also more salty. If you want to prepare a Smithfield ham or bacon slab to remove most of the excess salt you can either soak it in a pan of whole milk or soak it in water. The milk soak leaves the meat more dry and the water soak re hydrates the meat more. I prefer the milk soak if I am going to use the meat in a dish with liquid like black eyed peas and ham or bacon but the water soak is better for a ham if it is going to be baked. FYI - It is the butterfat and cream in whole milk that removes the salt without excessive soaking.

Originally posted by happykat39
reply to post by Philippines

 

A portion of the pork belly is used to make bacon. The rind (skin) is left on until after it is already bacon. Then, depending on where you buy it, you can get it whole with the skin, sliced down to the skin, or as individual slices with or without the rind.

The curing is done in one of two main ways. The first is a salt cure in which the bacon is salted down and allowed to give up a lot of its moisture to the salt. The second main way is to use brown sugar in place of the salt. Once it is properly cured it is ready to cook and eat or you can smoke it with any one of several popular woods like maple or pecan. If it is smoked in a high temperature smoker, as opposed to a smokehouse where the temperature is generally lower to give a milder smoke, flavor the meat can be eaten as is since the high temperature smoking will also cook it.

The Smithfield process is completely different and produces a bacon with a unique flavor. The Smithfield process is used mainly on whole hams or the portions of shank or butt but can be used on bacon too. It is done by hanging it in a special cloth wrapper in a very closely temperature and humidity controlled room after a short soaking with brine. While the flavor of a Smithfield cured meat is unique it is also more salty. If you want to prepare a Smithfield ham or bacon slab to remove most of the excess salt you can either soak it in a pan of whole milk or soak it in water. The milk soak leaves the meat more dry and the water soak re hydrates the meat more. I prefer the milk soak if I am going to use the meat in a dish with liquid like black eyed peas and ham or bacon but the water soak is better for a ham if it is going to be baked. FYI - It is the butterfat and cream in whole milk that removes the salt without excessive soaking.

edit on 9-11-2012 by happykat39 because: (no reason given)

Wow, I'm impressed, and did not know of the Smithfield milk soak, I will have to try it someday if I manage to buy milk and remember, but I am a fan of taste so I probably will, hehe =)

Salt and sugar (including forms of) are probably the most basic types of preservatives known to man. You're right on the pork belly being used too, a layered portion of fat/muscle/fat/muscle/nipples!

When you make bacon, what are your temperatures and times? Do you make hot smoke and cold smoke varieties? What is your brining recipe and seasonings during the smoking process? What kind of woods do you smoke with? Here guava is probably the most popular, followed by elderberry and maybe pear depending on your location

reply to post by Philippines


I have never personally made bacon but I spent a great deal of my youth on a farm where we did all sorts of things with meat. My favorite was aged beef done the old fashioned way that the USDA no longer allows. A whole side or quarter of beef was hung in a temperature and humidity controlled cooler for a few weeks and allowed to age. That means that the natural enzymes in the meat would start breaking it down. There would be considerable loss due to drying and the outside of the meat would turn green and slimy. But underneath that and after trimming you would find the most tender and tasty steaks to ever cross a tongue.

My family used a smokehouse that produced a low temperature cure but some of our neighbors used a hot smoker. As to the brine mix I really don't remember what, other than rock salt, that they used. But when they did a sugar cure it was with pure brown sugar.

reply to post by Philippines


I can't help you there....I prefer just to cook it up.
I noticed your name
I'm 1/2 Filipino
and Filipinos have a thing for pork
probably why they roasted a pig on spit for my christening

I personally like to wrap my bacon in bacon and make a bacon wrapped milkshake out of my bacon.

*homer simpson face*

mmmmmm baconnnnnnn

reply to post by MidnightSunshine



Yes,

Lard sandwiches....they were big during the depression, use everything, eat everything.

reply to post by MidnightSunshine


Yummy piggies.....never tried them with bacon.

Props for knowing pigs in the blanket is stuffed cabbage and not cocktail wieners.....are you from Pennsylvania by any chance?

reply to post by obnoxiouschick


I am anemic all the time and I crave liver, luckily I love it....it does wonders for iron deficiency.