Curing mixture: 50/50 salt and light demerara sugar, crushed juniper berries, cracked black peppercorns, ground white pepper and shredded dried bay leaves.
I’m very much hoping that it’s tastier than the dry cured bacon we’ve been buying (since we moved here) from the same butcher that the belly came from, as it’s half the price.
Yes, the recipe is simple. I’ll be slicing and freezing in it breakfast sized portions
Not totally sure - probably in the wine cellar (aka the cupboard under the stairs)
On a slightly more serious note, I eat quite a lot of bacon and some folk out there are of the opinion that commercial curing salt containing saltpetre (nitrates/nitrites) is carcogenic. That’s why I’m not using it in my curing mix.
we got one - it is quite old now, but it is a handy gadget to have. Our motor sounds like it might pack up soon, and the plastic gear wheels look like they might shed all their teeth soon.
According to people who know more about this stuff than I do, manual slicers are definitely the way forward. The heat generated by the motors on an electrical slicer can start to melt the fat on the bacon, which you don’t really want. I recommend this:
