I like bacon. I might even go as far as saying 'I love bacon'. Let's just say, we use a lot of it in our household. It is no longer just a treat for the weekend, but it may just sneak into a weekday breakfast or feature as part of a dinner. Bacon just goes with anything. There is the classic combo of chicken and bacon, but it also goes so well with salmon or on its own to spice up that stir fried cabbage.
Seeing as I like bacon so much, I want to make sure that I get the right kind. I was looking at the ingredients on my favourite web based retailer's website and most of their free-range and organic bacon had the same preservatives in them: E252 and E250, also known as potassium nitrate (saltpetre) and sodium nitrite. I am not entirely convinced that I need to ingest vast amounts of these preservatives and I vaguely remembered seeing one of these food programmes about curing bacon. It could have been Jamie Oliver or Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, there are just so many! Anyway, time to do some research, i.e. Google search and speaking to Simon's brother the chef. Turns out, all you need is salt, sugar and some spices, and a nice piece of pork belly.
Being slightly risk averse, I decided to purchase a ready-made mix of curing salt. I chose an organic one from here:
http://www.weschenfelder.co.uk
I also bought a three-pronged bacon hook, so I can hang my pork belly in the shed.
The nice guys at Weschenfelder assured me that it should be delivered by Wednesday. Ooh, the excitement!
Update to follow.
