Making the Bacon Just Right
I love bacon. If I have the chance, I will eat all of it I can get. All you can eat breakfast? I'm up and down, up and down, walking over and getting more bacon.
For years I could not eat bacon. I have a strange allergy to any kind of sweetener - sugar, corn syrup, honey, etc. Most bacon being sweetened somehow, that meant no bacon for me. Just this past year, however, Kroger and a few other stores have been selling no-sugar bacon. So, I've been enjoying Saturday mornings cooking & eating most of a pound of bacon with my coffee.
My dad used to make bacon in the mornings. He cooked it by throwing in a hunk of still-attached slices and as the hunk slowly warmed up he would peel of the slices and arrange them in the pan.
I don't like to cook it that way. I like my bacon straight and evenly cooked, not curly and uneven. So, I take a hunk of slices out of the package and peel off each slice and lay it in the pan next to the slice just before it. So, for bacon anyway, getting started in the right way is important to the outcome.
About pans. The fist batch in a metal pan will tend to stick to the metal. You could do the first batch on very very low heat and that might keep it from sticking. The other batches will do better due to the layer of grease from the prior batch, and so then you could turn up the heat a bit. Frankly, I find a cheap Teflon pan does best of all. The frying is a bit hard on the coating, I think, so just the $12 pan, thank you, and when the Teflon starts to look thin toss the pan and get another.
Talking about outcomes. I have never liked fat. I mean, the white stuff. I'm always trimming the fat off a piece of meat and not eating it. Ditto for bacon, which is at least 50% fat. Except, you can't really trim the fat off the bacon, can you? But what you can do is be picky at the store. Just spending a moment looking at the 'representative slice' through the little plastic window will help you pick a set of bacon that is mostly lean read meat, with just a little fat. So, choose a good cut.
Next, I used to think crispy was the goal. I used to cook the hell out of the bacon and end up with these crackly brown strips that went 'crunch' when you bit them. But y'know, a lot of those pieces were burned and many of them tasted kind of dried out. So instead, I've been playing with just-a-tad-before-crispy. Sort of 'medium well' if you get the picture. Well cooked and brown all over, but not dried out, and more 'chewy' than 'crisp'. That is what I'm going for in a piece of bacon.
Bacon can act kind of funny in the pan. It's always a bit more cooked than it looks, so that means you have to watch it toward the end of the process pretty closely, and use some judgment. If the piece is stiff, it's already overcooked. So, I'm looking for some flexibility in the bacon strip - it still bends a bit when you pick it up. However, remember I don't like the white stuff (fat), so I'm also looking for an even darkness all over the piece. When the piece is brown or dark red all over but still bends a bit, it's ready to come off. Occasionally there will be a fat piece at the end of the strip that is still white-looking, so I mash that flat on the pan with a fork and hold it for a while, and that browns the fatty spot.
If cooking a whole pound, the grease from each batch builds in the pan. Some people will drain of the grease at that point. I don't do that. In fact, the last batch comes off best of all, because the strips are cooking very evenly in the 1/4 inch of grease, almost like a deep-fry. So, don't worry about the grease buildup.
When the bacon comes off, it goes on a paper towel on a plate so the grease can drain off a bit. Then it's ready to eat!
For years I could not eat bacon. I have a strange allergy to any kind of sweetener - sugar, corn syrup, honey, etc. Most bacon being sweetened somehow, that meant no bacon for me. Just this past year, however, Kroger and a few other stores have been selling no-sugar bacon. So, I've been enjoying Saturday mornings cooking & eating most of a pound of bacon with my coffee.
My dad used to make bacon in the mornings. He cooked it by throwing in a hunk of still-attached slices and as the hunk slowly warmed up he would peel of the slices and arrange them in the pan.
I don't like to cook it that way. I like my bacon straight and evenly cooked, not curly and uneven. So, I take a hunk of slices out of the package and peel off each slice and lay it in the pan next to the slice just before it. So, for bacon anyway, getting started in the right way is important to the outcome.
About pans. The fist batch in a metal pan will tend to stick to the metal. You could do the first batch on very very low heat and that might keep it from sticking. The other batches will do better due to the layer of grease from the prior batch, and so then you could turn up the heat a bit. Frankly, I find a cheap Teflon pan does best of all. The frying is a bit hard on the coating, I think, so just the $12 pan, thank you, and when the Teflon starts to look thin toss the pan and get another.
Talking about outcomes. I have never liked fat. I mean, the white stuff. I'm always trimming the fat off a piece of meat and not eating it. Ditto for bacon, which is at least 50% fat. Except, you can't really trim the fat off the bacon, can you? But what you can do is be picky at the store. Just spending a moment looking at the 'representative slice' through the little plastic window will help you pick a set of bacon that is mostly lean read meat, with just a little fat. So, choose a good cut.
Next, I used to think crispy was the goal. I used to cook the hell out of the bacon and end up with these crackly brown strips that went 'crunch' when you bit them. But y'know, a lot of those pieces were burned and many of them tasted kind of dried out. So instead, I've been playing with just-a-tad-before-crispy. Sort of 'medium well' if you get the picture. Well cooked and brown all over, but not dried out, and more 'chewy' than 'crisp'. That is what I'm going for in a piece of bacon.
Bacon can act kind of funny in the pan. It's always a bit more cooked than it looks, so that means you have to watch it toward the end of the process pretty closely, and use some judgment. If the piece is stiff, it's already overcooked. So, I'm looking for some flexibility in the bacon strip - it still bends a bit when you pick it up. However, remember I don't like the white stuff (fat), so I'm also looking for an even darkness all over the piece. When the piece is brown or dark red all over but still bends a bit, it's ready to come off. Occasionally there will be a fat piece at the end of the strip that is still white-looking, so I mash that flat on the pan with a fork and hold it for a while, and that browns the fatty spot.
If cooking a whole pound, the grease from each batch builds in the pan. Some people will drain of the grease at that point. I don't do that. In fact, the last batch comes off best of all, because the strips are cooking very evenly in the 1/4 inch of grease, almost like a deep-fry. So, don't worry about the grease buildup.
When the bacon comes off, it goes on a paper towel on a plate so the grease can drain off a bit. Then it's ready to eat!
posted by Woody @ 9:45 AM
0 Comments
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home