Buckboard Bacon

[Jonty]

This combines two loves of mine, curing and smoking. an American friend of mine put me on to this as it's a hybrid between a ham and bacon, you can eat it cold as is, or fry it like rashers. The odd thing is is that the flavour profile is completely different cold to hot. I's not quite barbeque per se, but it is seriously good eating. The recipe I have includes liquid smoke, which I was hesitant about using, but it does add a depth/richness to the flavour.

I used some boned pork shoulder, the dry rub is a mix of garlic powder, onion granules, salt, sugar and curing salts



Then mixed up some molasses with the liquid smoke then put the meat and any remnants of the rub in a vac pack bag, added the liquid and sealed the bag up. You could as easily use a tupperware container. Then into the fridge for three weeks



The meat really takes the colour from the molasses. Rolled and tied for smoking.



Smoked quite low at 175 until internal temp if 140



It really is fantastic stuff, honestly worth a try - it doesn't last five minutes in this house

[London Irish]

Interesting...very interesting...

Can you taste the sweetness of the molasses?

[Jonty]

Yes you can. Morso if you eat it cold like ham. If you fry it like bacon the garlic comes out more but you still get the sweet stickness of a glazed ham around the edges of the slices.

[London Irish]

Thanks for that Jonty, have added it to my list of things to so

[keith157]

So many great ideas, so much delicious looking food, so little waistline left

[stretchie_]

That is on my 'to try' list. Looks fantastic

[Jonty]

It really is worth a try. In fact posting this reminded me I've not had some for a while so I'm just off to buy some shouledr right now

[UKEgger]

So this post inspired me to try making my own bacon as I had half pork belly spare.

I must admit to being completely paranoid after reading up on all the what to do and what not to do, especially around using prague powder etc however after finding some good guides I jumped in. Used a simple mix of Kosher salt, demera sugar and small amount of prague powder, also added some lemon pepper just because I had it in the cupboard.

7 days in the fridge to cure washed it then smoked it on the Egg for around 3.5 hours until 150 internal. I removed a small piece of skin to see the difference with or without skin

After smoking

After Smoking

In the pan

Was pretty pleased with it an will be making some more for sure.

[aris]

Have a look at the pre made bacon cures too. They have all the sugar, salt, and curing agents all pre mixed.

[keith157]

What was the decision re the skin?