Braised bacon?

medtran49

medtran49

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Anybody ever done this or eaten it? We went out for breakfast this morning and 1 of the specials was carbonara Benedict, which we both ordered. It was a poached egg served with braised bacon and a Parmesan cream sauce on an English muffin. It was good, but I could do better, more sauce, with more cheese in the sauce, more bacon, and a bit less cooked eggs. It was served with a very lightly oil and vinegar dressed mixed green salad. The restaurant is a bit healthy foods oriented in that they offer things like salad or fruit instead of breakfast potatoes, though you can ask for them, various egg white omelets, whole grain bread, natural sugar (no white to be had), etc. What really got my interest though was the braised bacon, thick cut and extremely tender. It was yummy.
 
Maybe we need to define 'braised'? The BBC Good Food website defines it thus:

Braising involves cooking a piece or pieces of meat at a low-to-moderate temperature in a covered cast-iron or earthenware casserole for a long time in just enough liquid to ensure a succulent result. The meat may or may not be floured and sealed in hot oil before cooking.
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Other definitions suggest it is meat cooked at a high heat initially and then a longer time in stock.

The nearest I can think of to braised bacon would be a gammon which is simmered for a long time until tender and then cut into thick slices. What did the bacon look like?
 
Thick cut bacon that had been fried/sauteed, but was tender and easier to cut through than the toasted English muffin. You could see the fibers where it tore apart.
 
Funny you should bring this up, wife and gd, went for a hot chocolate yesterday but the cafe was closed, so I decided to take them in the car to another one a 10 min drive away. Gd was looking forward to her chocolate. I don't normally have brekky, but felt like some eggs and benne. Anyway it came with thick crunchy bacon. 10/10 for me. Gd loved her chocolate and caramel slice too. Everyone was happy.

Russ
 
It pretty much is. I had it in Ireland.

The American culinary tradition of having corned beef and cabbage on St. Patty's day is from the Irish and UK dish of boiled\braised gammon. Corned beef was the closest thing the new immigrants found that they had at home.

My wife doesn't braise our holiday hams, but rather bakes it on a rack, skin side up, over an inch of water in the bottom of the roasting pan.
 
I've been looking at how to cure gammon, looks a lot like our country hams if you use the dry cure method, which will take months. I did find some wet cure (brining basically) methods that look interesting and don't require more than a few weeks. Think I might give the wet cure a try since it's been a while since we made any cured products. Will have to invest in a cold smoke set up though as I don't want to jury rig something like we did last time when we cold smoked something for 1 meal when using a large piece of meat that has had time invested in it. Time to pull out the charcuterie books!
 
medtran49 said:
I've been looking at how to cure gammon, looks a lot like our country hams if you use the dry cure method, which will take months. I did find some wet cure (brining basically) methods that look interesting and don't require more than a few weeks. Think I might give the wet cure a try since it's been a while since we made any cured products. Will have to invest in a cold smoke set up though as I don't want to jury rig something like we did last time when we cold smoked something for 1 meal when using a large piece of meat that has had time invested in it. Time to pull out the charcuterie books!
Click to expand...
Do keep us informed on this! I have an interest in curing - I’ve done bacon chops but never a full gammon
 
A little off topic but one cooking technique for bacon/ side
Pork is to get the strips going in a half inch of water and simmer down until the water evaporates then start to crisp up the bacon. Looks a bit unappetizing but the magic starts to happen when the bacon starts to brown. It ends up being really crispy and tender. It is a technique that works especially well with pork belly pieces. They are called chicharonne. I do it with full thick slices of side pork.
 
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Since I really didn't want to try this with a fresh ham/picnic/gammon joint, I decided to pick up a pork butt, debone it and then cure and cold smoke. Surprisingly enough, our meat place had deboned pork butt on sale for $1.69 pound, which was 10 cents LESS than bone-in. So I picked up a nicely even rolled and tied roast. Later today, after Craig gets the curing supplies down for me, I'll unroll it, get the cure on it and bag it up for a few days. If this works, think I'll then try a whole joint, but have them cut it down into thick steaks (they will cut meats to order) and cure/smoke since I don't have a set up anymore to hang a whole ham for months.
 
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