MAKING BACON

O.K so firstly I should say that the bacon here in Spain is rubbish to put it mildly. It is virtually impossible to find raw bacon in a supermarket or butchers shop as it all appears to be boiled. If you think the worst kind of supermarket reconstituted boiled ham, and then imagine a bacon version then you are getting somewhere close.

With this in mind along with the fact that people are going a bit organic artisan crazy I decided to have a go at curing my own bacon.

Baring in mind that a whole pork belly will come in at a much cheaper price per kilo than the equivalent quality bacon I can’t work out why freshly made products are so much more expensive. Put a piece of homemade bacon on a restaurant menu and people are going to love it especially as there is no need to put up the price.

So I started out by scanning a few methods on line to get the general gist as I had never had a go at making bacon before.

It struck me that the most difficult thing about making bacon at home was smoking it. Smoking is not essential but will change the flavour considerably.

I decided to crack on in absence of a smoker and just try plain old unsmoked streaky bacon.

Advice told me that if you plan on smoking your bacon little else is needed apart from salt as the flavors of all other ingredients tend to be lost after smoking. As I was not smoking it I decided to add some brown sugar and black pepper to the salt for curing.

I made no measurements of my ingredients because, well I’m a chef and generally we don’t like to measure. I poured out about three quarters of a kilo bag of salt, added a few big spoonfuls of brown sugar and ground in some fresh black pepper until I was tired and bored of turning the grinder. All of the articles and recipes said to add saltpeter but this was optional. As I didn’t have any or have any idea where to get hold of any here in Spain I opted to ignore that part.

So first thing I needed was a big old slab of belly pork. Once an unfashionable cheap cut of poor man’s meat, pork belly has risen to dizzying heights of stardom to become one of the most popular menu items in the U.K of recent times, and it deserves every moment of the spotlight. Pound for pound it is about the most flavorsome cut of pork. Pork being the most flavorsome animal that there is means it’s just about the best thing you can put in your mouth. Get hold of a Duroc or Iberic acorn fed pig and your really cooking.

Once I procured my belly I got straight down to it. It’s easy. All you need to do is rub a load of that salty mix you prepared earlier in to every nook and cranny of the belly, lay the belly in a big Tupperware container and pop it in the fridge.

The next day I found quite a bit of water had leaked from the pork into the tub. I drained off this water, dried the tub and rubbed in a load more salty mix, and then back in the fridge.

Somewhere I read you should cure the bacon for a minimum of five days and a maximum of two weeks, though two weeks produces really salty bacon.

Based on nothing I decided seven days sounded like about the right amount of time so every day for seven day’s I just poured off the liquid and rubbed more mix. I told you it was easy.

On day seven I washed off any cure from the belly and patted it dry, wrapped it in a piece of muslin and hung it in an outside storage area for twenty four hours.

That’s it, I had bacon. I stuck it in the freezer for an hour or so to firm it up for slicing and as you can see by the photo it looks like real bacon. Obviously the truth was always going to be in the tasting so I was a little nervous the first time I threw a couple of rashers in a pan.

The first thing I noticed was a slightly pungent smell, not off putting but a clear difference than of shop bought bacon. I fried it up until nice and crispy and popped it between a couple of slices of buttered bread.

I gotta tell you I was pleasantly surprised. The final result gives you a much porkier taste than anything shop bought. It’s kind of like a cross between the two, bacon and belly pork. I ate it with fried eggs and sliced it up to make sauces and creamy mustardy potato salad and when all results were in I definitely branded it a winner.

Final message- Go forth and make bacon, it’s easy.

Now I have to work out how to make a smoker.

CHEF BY NAME

I can think of no other industry where all the employees go by the same name, with the exception maybe of King.

Hello king, oh hey king how’s it going have you met king over here.

Well that’s how it is in the catering industry, certainly in England.

In America and France I’m led to believe one has to rise through the ranks grafting hard over many years until finally one day you have earned the right to be called chef. In England this is not the case.

In England the moment you walk into a professional kitchen for the first time, the moment you slide your arms into the white jacket, the first time you pick up a knife you are essentially agreeing to change your name as permanently as if you had paid to do it by deed pole.

Chef becomes your new title, your new name, what you will be known as for the rest of your career if not life.

You may imagine this can get a little confusing under the pressure of a Friday night service in a small hot firey enclosed space filled with knives and testosterone but actually it works just fine.

How’s that chicken coming chef? Coming in two minutes chef. How about you chef, do you have the sauces I asked for? Yes chef, I’m just waiting on the onions from chef.

In a well oiled kitchen everyone knows their place, everyone knows their role and everyone knows their name when it’s called.

After work when all are congregated in the local bar for a drink do we revert back to our civilian names, do we once more become John and Frank and Mike. The answer is no we do not as those names no longer exist.

We are all called chef.

Sometimes as a show of informality you may here us calling each other Cheffry or Chefton but at the end of the day that is just a nickname, as common as shortening Philip to Phil or Richard to Rich, except in reverse.

There have been people I have worked with over the years whose birth given name’s I have never known.

Chef is not just a job title like cleaner or bank manager. It is not just a description of what we may do for a living. Chef is an identity. Chef is who we are and Chef is the proud name we take when converting to the religion that is professional cooking.