Makin' Bacon

[George K]

Mrs George has been enthusiastic about breakfast lately: Scrambled egg, toast and bacon.

Bacon is wonderful, but a pain in the ass. Those long strips are difficult to peel off the rasher, and difficult to flip.

So, I had a revelation: Cut the strips in half, making them so much easier to handle.

Then, I had ANOTHER revelation: Why not freeze the cooked bacon for future use? I put two (cut-in-half) strips into a vacuum sealer bag and froze them. When it's time for breakfast, pop 'em out of the bag and nuke the two strips for 20 seconds. Came out perfect.

Revelation #3: Yeah, I really should make a big batch of bacon for future use - and I should really do it in the oven. SO much easier.

Revelation #4: Bacon grease...

What should I do with it. Does anyone cook with it? Should it be refrigerated? IF you cook with it, what should I use it for?

[Mik]

Green beans in bacon grease with bacon pieces. A little in biscuits, maybe grease the cast iron pan with it for cornbread or biscuits.

[89th]

My kid loves bacon lately so we use the poor man’s approach of using the precooked bacon (72 pieces?) from Costco and, like you said, just nuke it for 30-60 seconds and it’s ready.

For uncooked bacon, one tip that helps for peeling is to roll the package up like you’re rolling a towel before you open it. Makes peeling pieces off a little easier.

[George K]

@89th said in Makin' Bacon:

using the precooked bacon (72 pieces?) from Costco

Ive tried the pre-cooked stuff available at our grocer (Oscar Meyer, iirc), and it's just not the same.

When I nuke the frozen stuff, there's just a hint of grease that gets rendered out, making it really tasty.

I now have 7 breakfasts' worth in the freezer in 7 packets.

[Copper]

It is difficult to put the cooked bacon in the freezer, I always end up eating half of it before it gets there.

[Doctor Phibes]

I've slowly got used to American bacon, and I've been having it with eggs at the weekend. It tastes great, but I still miss the British stuff.

(British bacon is kind of half way between American and Canadian bacon)

[Jolly]

@George-K said in Makin' Bacon:

Mrs George has been enthusiastic about breakfast lately: Scrambled egg, toast and bacon.

Bacon is wonderful, but a pain in the ass. Those long strips are difficult to peel off the rasher, and difficult to flip.

So, I had a revelation: Cut the strips in half, making them so much easier to handle.

Then, I had ANOTHER revelation: Why not freeze the cooked bacon for future use? I put two (cut-in-half) strips into a vacuum sealer bag and froze them. When it's time for breakfast, pop 'em out of the bag and nuke the two strips for 20 seconds. Came out perfect.

Revelation #3: Yeah, I really should make a big batch of bacon for future use - and I should really do it in the oven. SO much easier.

Revelation #4: Bacon grease...

What should I do with it. Does anyone cook with it? Should it be refrigerated? IF you cook with it, what should I use it for?

In the South, bacon grease is a major food group. No kitchen is without one of these or something similar:

A dollop in green beans, with some small diced onion and a smidgen of sugar. A smidgen of bacon grease in field peas. As Mik said, grease your cast iron biscuit skillet and brush a little butter on your biscuit tops before they hit the oven.

Bacon grease is essential to good cornbread. One method is to put a good dollop in your skillet, put the skillet in the hot oven until it gets pretty hot, then take it out and put your cornbread mixture in...Then return to the oven to bake. That will sizzle and give you a nice crust. Or...

You can put your skillet on the stovetop, put a dollop if bacon grease in it. You'll get a bit of a sizzle, but you want to take a spoon or a knife and draw it through your mixture on the stovetop, letting some of that grsase work to the top (but not too much. Cook the cornbread on the eye until you get the crust to a certain point (it takes practice) and youve got some bubbles in your cornbread. Transfer your skillet to a preheated oven and finish the cornbread.

And if that ain't enough hog in your bread, and you have good teeth, cook some cracklin' bread.

[George K]

I have that oil thingie! I use it for storing vegetable oil after I make my chicken schnitzel.

[Jolly]

And...If you want to go full deer camp, fry the bacon first, then fry your eggs in the bacon grease. Swab your plate with a piece of light bread. Wash down with black coffee, from the pot sittin' on the wood heater.

If you're feeling really wild and wooly, toss a small can of peaches to everybody for dessert.

[Doctor Phibes]

@Jolly said in Makin' Bacon:

And...If you want to go full deer camp, fry the bacon first, then fry your eggs in the bacon grease.

Guilty as charged.

[Mik]

@Doctor-Phibes I’m proud of you. That’s Murican.

[Doctor Phibes]

@Mik said in Makin' Bacon:

@Doctor-Phibes I’m proud of you. That’s Murican.

Also Scottish, as you save having to spend money on cooking oil.

[LuFins Dad]

Wait, there’s an option of not frying your eggs in bacon grease?

[George K]

@LuFins-Dad said in Makin' Bacon:

Wait, there’s an option of not frying your eggs in bacon grease?

I wonder how scrambled eggs cooked in bacon grease would be?

[Copper]

Yes, always cook the eggs in the bacon grease, hashbrowns and pancakes too.

[Jolly]

Lord have Mercy, y'all are a cardiologist's dream...

[jon-nyc]

My mother always kept bacon grease in an open coffee mug in the fridge. She’d cook with it all the time.

[jon-nyc]

I think bacon from the 70s and 80s rendered more fat than it does today.

Obviously I mean store bought stuff. Not that pigs have changed. Although maybe.

[Jolly]

@jon-nyc said in Makin' Bacon:

I think bacon from the 70s and 80s rendered more fat than it does today.

Obviously I mean store bought stuff. Not that pigs have changed. Although maybe.

Pigs have changed, but not that recently. If you look at hogs from the early 1900's, you'll notice they have more fat to lean than today's hogs. Most hogs are killed as market barrows, usually in that 220 to 250 pound weight range. That's about where you start to peter out on the optimum feed/weight gain spectrum using high protein pellets. A good hog will put on a pound of weight for every three pounds of feed.

Then again, my wife's folks tend to raise most of their feed and many times will let a hog go to 400 pounds. Considering that hogs dress off a third, that's around a 260 pound carcass weight (without the head, but shucks, we eat those , too).

There's a pretty good argument going on in the food world today, about hog size, feed source and taste.

Actually, I've had some pretty good pork in the past that was pasture raised and fed chops, pizza and beer.

[Copper]

@jon-nyc said in Makin' Bacon:

I think bacon from the 70s and 80s rendered more fat than it does today.

Obviously I mean store bought stuff. Not that pigs have changed. Although maybe.

The pigs are now owned by the Chinese.

They used to slaughter them just a few minutes drive from here, but that stopped a couple years ago after the Chinese bought Smithfield Foods.

They still make pork products in the plant here, but the slaughter has moved. Nobody misses the scent that could be here during the summer with the right wind conditions.