Like pretty much anyone with taste buds and a working nose, I love bacon, and having a stab at curing my own is something I’ve wanted to do for a while, in fact ever since I read this article by Tim Hayward a few years ago.

Despite what you think, it’s actually really easy. In fact I’d say anyone blessed with a pair of arms could do it. It requires no culinary skill what so ever, just a very few ingredients and a bit of time. In fact less than a week. Just think, a week after reading this you could be tucking into a sarnie made with your own bacon. Excited? You should be.

I substituted the maple syrup in Tim’s cure for black treacle, as I wanted to try something a bit different, and I used a smaller joint, but the rest of the method is pretty much as described in the link above. The only other thing you’ll need is a tupperware box big enough to accommodate the joint.

Ingredients

1kg loin of pork, skin removed and boned

400ml black treacle

300g unrefined sea salt

Method

Day 1: Go to a decent butcher and ask him / her for a boned loin of pork with a finished weight of around a kilo. Also ask them to remove the skin, but leave the fat on. Take the joint home, pop it into your tupperware box, and then cover in 200ml of the black treacle. Give the joint a good rub all over, making sure it’s nicely coated, and then pop on the lid and stick it in the fridge.

Day 2: 24 hours later, take out the box and then sprinkle 150g of the unrefined sea salt over the joint. The salt I used was ‘Gros Sel’ which I found in a local Turkish shop. It’s grey in colour, contains no chemicals, and is pretty chunky, so I broke it down a bit in a pestle and mortar. If you can’t get your hands on it, use something like this, but avoid using refined table salt. Rub the salt all over the joint, and re-coat with the treacle, before returning to the fridge covered. Before you go to bed, turn the joint once.

Day 3: In the morning, turn the joint again. You’ll notice that bacon transformation has started. The salt has begun to draw the moisture out of the meat, firming it up, and the treacle has stained it a dark brown colour. Tim Hayward comments that the texture of his joint at this stage reminds him of Gordon Ramsay, but mine is definitely more Ray Winstone from Sexy Beast. When the pork has been marinating for 24 hours, its time to change the cure. Rinse the joint and the tupperware clean, and then pat the meat dry. Return to the box and then re-salt and treacle (at the same time this time) with the remaining quantities, again making sure to rub the joint all over. return to the fridge and turn the meat before bed.

Day 4 and 5: Over the next 48 hours, as often as you care to, turn and rub the meat with the salty treacle. As time goes on, you’ll feel the joint become firmer still as the meat continues to cure and more water leeches out of it.

Day 6: You’re almost there. Remove the joint from the cure, and once again rinse the meat and tupperware with cold water and pat the meat dry. At this stage you could start carving slices and eating. Like Tim, my excitement got the better of me, and I tried it, but it was way too salty to be truly delicious, so I decided to soak it to alleviate the problem. Immerse the joint in cold water for around four hours, changing the water after two. Now take out the bacon, pat it dry and then put it back in the box, uncovered this time, and return to the fridge until morning.

Day 7: Triumphantly take out your bacon, cut a few thin rashers (this is the only hard bit of the process – even with a good sharp knife, cutting an even, thin slice of bacon is tricky), fire up your frying pan and get ready to grin like a Cheshire cat.

And thats it. It really is that easy. I’ve already got my second joint on the go, and this time I think I’m going to take the results to the butcher I bought the joint from and see if they’ll slice it on their machine for me.

Tags: Article, Bacon, Black Treacle, Butcher, Cure, Guardian, Home, Loin, Pork, Sel Gr, Tim Hayward, Unrefined Sea Salt

This entry was posted on Friday, January 20th, 2012 at 3:21 pm and is filed under Breakfast, Reading, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.