Orange Bacon

[Dave Weinstein]

Orange Bacon

This is a sweet bacon, but I find it works well in some savory dishes as well.

The ingredients are for a small batch (since I generally buy small pieces of pork belly, rather than doing an entire belly at a time).

References: Cooking (or curing) from Charcuterie, sausages, terrines, cured meats

• 1 T Lapsang Souchong Tea
  
• 1 T Pure Expressed Orange Oil
  
• 1 T Finely chopped dried orange peel
  
• 1/3 c Brown Sugar
  
• 1-1/2 T Basic cure (Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing )
  
• 1-1/4 lb Pork Belly, Skin On
  

Prepare the pork belly as normal with the cure mix (as per the cookbook referenced above). Pour the orange oil across the meat side, and then cover the meat side evenly with the dried peel and tea leaves and brown sugar, and then cure for one week as normal.

Note: Yes, this really needs the cookbook. But the cookbook is worth it, and I'm not giving advice on meat curing when there is a perfectly good reference readily available.

Additional note: I use FoodSaver bags for making bacon, because then I can keep the meat entirely in the cure, and flip it easily in the refridgerator.

Keywords: Pork, Easy

( RG1727 )