In the theme of curing all things that walk, swim or fly I have added a new conquest: bacon. I mean BACON! Yes that holiest of meats (sorry Jews and Muslims) is now for home fabrication (eat it Hormel!)
I’ve been saving half of the belly from the hog I butchered last Christmas. Spurred on by my salmon success I finally sprung into action. The only real difference in the preservation process between the guanciale/salmon and the five pound slab of belly is the addition of pink salt (not the Hawaiian stuff. Confusing these two will not have delicious results.) No, I’m talking about sodium nitrite. Yes, yes. Evil nitrites. Without them the whole world of salumi and bacons and hams and lots of other fabulous things wouldn’t exist. I’m willing to take the risk. Get over it.
Salted, sugared, and nitrited, the porky beast has been sitting in my fridge for seven days now and the suspense has been burning. The process just happened to come to completion the weekend that Mme. Pants decided to trot off and party in DC. Her loss. That’ll teach her to jet set.
You may be wondering how I feed myself with my lovely wife missing. With bacon of course. Actually, I exhibited a huge amount of self control. Instead of having bacon fried in bacon fat with bacon sauce, I instead used a few choice pieces to flavor what basically amounted to a farmers’ market vegetable orgy/stir fry.
Green beans, two types of baby eggplants, padrone, piquin, and Chinese five-color peppers and onion all came together under an amazing sweet and sour tamarind sauce that I have procured for my own ends ever since discovering it during the infamous son-in-law eggs’ experiment.
Yes, that’s a lot of peppers. See, I’m a bit of a heat freak. I save the Scoville threat-down for when the wifey is out of town (or not looking.) Who says a capsaicin buzz is a bad thing?
The veggies and bacon totally made my night. And on that note I’m off the bed peoples. Two more days without Girlie. Can you stand it?
-L. Pants.
