The Charcuterie Adventure: Dry Cured Bacon

INGREDIENTS

Pork Belly (skin off unless you prefer it on, bone out). use the best quality ethically reared pork you can find

Flavour 1: Black pepper, thyme and fennel

This is a family favourite

22,5g/kg Sea salt*
8g/kg light brown sugar
3,75g/kg Prague powder (this is as per the manufacturer dosage rate from my supplier)
Generous amount of coarse crushed black pepper, dried thyme and lightly crushed fennel seeds.

Flavour 2: Maple Syrup

22,5g/kg Sea salt*
30g/kg Demerara sugar
80ml/kg genuine Canadian maple syrup
3,75g/kg Prague powder (this is as per the manufacturer dosage rate from my supplier)

Flavour 3: Jalapeno

22,5g/kg Sea Salt*
8g/kg light brown sugar
3,75g/kg Prague powder (this is as per the manufacturer dosage rate from my supplier)
pickled jalapeno chillies chopped and crushed, black pepper.

Flavour 4: Use your imagination on herbs, flavours and combinations:

Szechuan pepper
Marjoram
Origanum
Paprika
Juniper berry
white pepper
Cajun spice blends (compensate for salt)

*see blog page on salt selection

METHOD

Wash and dry your pork belly then place into a vacuum bag or zip lock bag and add your dry rub ingredients making sure you rub this mix into the entire surface area of the belly. Vacuum seal or simply squeeze out as much air as possible and close your bag and pop it in the fridge. Leave for 7 to 10 days (I started at 7 days however prefer a 10 day cure) turning daily.

After 10 days, remove the belly, wash off the rub with plenty of cold water. if too many herbs are washed away you can add more now but no salt or prague powder. Dry and hang in the fridge for around 24 hours to dry slightly.

After drying a pellicle on the cured bacon it is time to smoke.

Put into a cold smoker and smoke using your choice of wood. I use European beech for this recipe and cold smoke for around 3 hours. After smoking, put in a plastic bag and back int the fridge over night before slicing up to freeze or fry. thick cut (1cm) rashers are also awesome on the braai.

To make back bacon, substitute the belly for a deboned pork loin. For curing this, work on a minimum of 7 days or 1 day per 13mm thickness (thickest part), whichever is the greater.

you can ignore the criss-cross cuts in the belly fat below, these bellies got diverted from belly roasts to bacon.

Some additional side notes for the various flavours:

Black pepper, thyme and fennel - if you are not fond of fennel, leave this out. Just black pepper and thyme alone is wonderful. Origanum or Marjoram work really well in this mix too.
Maple syrup makes a lovely sweet bacon. the sugars penetrate so well that you get a caramelisation when frying.
Jalapeno: Add additional chopped jalapeno after smoking to fry up with the bacon. this is a very subtle flavour with almost no chilli burn noticeable.