A nice simple seven day cure bacon with an exotic flavor!
Usually I do not get excited about bacon. Many of the students at chef school think that bacon is like some kind of a prized possession. They actually get excited about bacon. That is the sign of a very green cook! The basic duty of regular high volume breakfast cooking is the first step in becoming a good line cook. Fast pace breakfast cooking in a restaurant is the very best way for a cook to develop good hand speed and coordination. Food order ticket reading or dupe reading skills become sharp when cooking breakfast too. One thing that a good breakfast cook does, is to prepare plenty of food before the shift starts. Backup containers of every item on the cooking line are prepared, chilled and ready for easy access, for when a container runs empty during a business rush. Bacon is usually blanched on parchment paper on a grill or in an oven, so it shrinks less and so it takes half the time to cook, when things get busy. Some very busy breakfast cooks prefer to cook the bacon till it is three quarters finished cooking ahead of time, so it can be finished simply by reheating. How much bacon is cooked ahead of time? Lots! Ten to twenty cases of bacon are partially cooked ahead of time for an average shift in a busy breakfast restaurant. The bacon grease vapor saturates a cook's hair, clothes, skin and taste senses. Everybody knows that a cook is a breakfast cook, because the cook smells like bacon! After a while, cooks get to the point where they never want to see bacon again as long as they live. Some bacon is better than others, but the choices are rather slim. Applewood or hickory smoked bacon are about the only two smoked bacon choices. Varieties of salt cured bacon are the norm. Dry cured bacon is available too. Maple or black forest flavored bacon are about the only choices for flavored bacon in most grocery stores. As you can see, the choices of commercially available bacon can get old and boring. Home cooks can safely use a refrigerated salt based curing method to create new flavors of cured bacon, without worrying about spoilage during the curing process. After curing, the bacon should be consumed within a couple days or it can be sliced and frozen for later use. Cured bacon can be smoked over a low temperature. Before smoking, the bacon needs to be left uncovered in refrigerated air for 24 hours, so a film of patina forms. I do not recommend the patina method for home cooks that are new to smoking bacon, because the health department does not approve of that old method. Salt cured bacon for immediate use requires no patina formation or smoking. Dry seasonings, dried ground fruit powders, exotic spice mixes and exotic salts can be used to create tasty custom creative salt cured bacon flavors! Fresh herbs, fresh spices and highly perishable seasoning mixtures should be avoided when curing bacon with food safety in mind. Many infused oils are actually highly perishable and they should not be used in a curing process. Acidic ingredients may cause an unwanted pickling effect. Orange peel is better for curing than orange juice! Soy sauce is an easy curing ingredient, if you like asian flavors. Fermented processed sauces like soy sauce or hot sauce are okay. Honey is a natural preservative and it can be added to a curing mixture if you wish to cut back on the amount of sugar. Raw sugar or brown sugar can also be used. Maple, pomegranate or agave syrup too. A gravlax curing salt and sugar proportion is also good for curing bacon. The bacon will never taste salty if the gravlax proportion is used. Kosher salt burns meat less than sea salt. Sea salt is better for flavoring than it is for curing. I used a small proportion of Himalayan Black Salt in my mango bacon curing mixture just to add an interesting flavor. The high sulfur content of Himalayan salt actually aids in protecting the meat from pathogens. No nitrates or color enhancers are needed for a seven day cure, if the bacon is cooked shortly after curing or frozen for later use. Salt is the oldest of all preservatives known to mankind, but it does have its limits, so make use of the bacon shortly after it is cured! The cured bacon can be thin sliced like store bought bacon. A slab of bacon can be roasted whole and then sliced. Thick bite size pieces can be cut, then grill, boiled or roasted. Pork Belly: Choose a good fresh clean piece of pork belly! Curing will not save meat that is already going bad! That is a mistake that some people make. It is not necessary to cure a whole side of pork belly when making bacon. I only cured a 5" wide slab of pork belly that weighed about 1 1/3 pounds. Butchers will cut pork belly to any requested size. The pork belly skin must be removed before curing. The cure will only saturate the slab of pork belly from the outside in. An ice pick, skewer or thin boning knife can be used to poke several tiny holes toward the center of a pork belly slab, so the cure can saturate the middle of the slab and not just the outer edges. A large zip lock plastic bag is best for containing the curing mixture after it liquifies. It is best to put the plastic bag inside of another container, in case the bag leaks. For a first attempt at creating a custom flavored cure, go small. Use a section of skinned pork belly that weighs 1 to 2 pounds. A 5" wide slab of skinned pork belly is good for this recipe.
Mango Chat Masala Cured Pork Belly Bacon: Himalayan black salt is not really black in color. It looks milky pink or milky orange colored. It is used in North Indian, Sri Lanka and Nepalese cuisine. Himalayan salt can be found at Indian markets. Chat Masala is Indian 14 spice mix and it is used to flavor many desserts. Chat masala contains cardamom, ginger, mango powder, cinnamon, allspice, nutmeg, coriander, peppercorns and a few other warm dessert spices that are perfect for a bacon flavor. Ground dried mango powder and chat masala can be found in Indian markets. Mix 2 parts sugar with 1 part Kosher salt. Mix about 1 1/2 cups for a 5" wide slab of pork belly. Any curing mixture that is leftover can be saved for later use. Place the pork belly on a small roasting pan, to catch the excess curing ingredients that fall off. Thoroughly coat the entire small slab of pork belly with the salt and sugar curing mixture. Note: For the flavorings, just season like you would a regular piece of meat! A large amount of spice is not necessary, because the meat will be in contact with the flavored cure for seven days. Season the small pork belly slab with a few generous pinches of Himalayan black salt. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of powdered dried mango evenly over the pork belly. Sprinkle 2 tablespoons of chat masala over the pork belly. Sprinkle 2 teaspoons of cayenne pepper over the pork belly. No black pepper or white pepper is needed! Both of those peppers are part of the chat masala spice mixture. Place the seasoned salted and sugared small pork belly slab into a large zip lock bag. Scrape the seasoning and salt that fell off of the pork belly into the pan together and place it into the zip lock bag with the pork belly. Add 1 extra tablespoon of Kosher salt to the bag to ensure a healthy salt curing level. Press the excess air out of the zip lock bag and seal the bag. Place the bag in a container in case it leaks. Write the curing start time and date and finish time and date down and keep it in plain sight. Once every 12 hours, pick the bag up and shake it, so the brine evenly coats the meat. Flip the meat, so the same side is not always facing down. The outer pork meat should darken to a beef like color after 4 to 5 days of curing. Open the bag once a day and check the aroma. There should be no hint of decay or contamination in the odor. If the meat becomes badly discolored or if there is a foul odor, then discard the meat. By 7 days you should have a nicely cured piece of pork belly. Remove the pork belly from the bag and pat it dry with a clean dry towel. Cut about ten strips of bacon to make a BLT with. Save the rest of the bacon for more recipes or portion the remaining bacon and freeze it for later use.
Mango Chat Masala Cured Bacon and Belgian Endive BLT Sandwich: Heat a saute pan or griddle over medium/medium low heat. Place ten thin slices of the Mango Chat Masala Cured Bacon in the pan. Grill the bacon on both sides, till it becomes crisp, lightly browned and fully cooked. Place the bacon strips on a roasting screen on a pan to drain of the excess grease. Toast 2 slices of whole grain wheat bread. Spread a thin layer of mayonnaise on the toast. (optional) Place a layer of trimmed Belgian Endive lettuce on one slice of the toasted bread. Place a few thin slices of ripe beefsteak tomato on the lettuce. (Beefsteak tomatoes are rather big and they have a great tomato flavor!) Place the crispy cooked Mango Chat Masala Cured Bacon slices on the tomato. Place the top slice of bread on the sandwich. Cut the BLT in half and place it on a plate. Garnish the plate with a sliced peach or a fruit of your choice. Serve with an ice cold Mexican beer like Modelo or a beverage of your choice!
Ah! Just what the doctor ordered! A great BLT made with great tasting home made exotic cured bacon! An ice cold Mexican lager beer! Yay! This is a safe curing method to try. A piece of raw uncured meat can sit in a refrigerator for 7 days with no problem, so a 7 day cure is well within a safe food handling range. If you follow the guidelines and recipe, your Mango Chat Masala Cured Bacon should turn out to be really good. Yum! ... Shawna
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