Fatback Joe
Babbling Farker
Well, not exactly, but struggling what else to call it. I had this very thin pork belly in the freezer for way too long. With all the hotdog making I had been doing lately we talked about making corndogs and I remembered seeing something a while back about pork belly confit corndogs. Anyhow, I took this bit of belly and hit it with a confit style mix of salt, sugar, and different herbs and put it in the fridge. When corndog day was drawing close, I took the thin little thing out and decided to cut it in half on only confit half of it. Took that through the process, made the corndogs and kind of let this other half kicking in the fridge.
I did the EQ method to determine my salt so I wasn't concerned with it being too salty. I thought it was too thin to really use as a true bacon, so said F it and decided to just skin it and roll it.
Rinsed, rolled, and tied.
Decided to just sous vide the poor little thing and finish it on the grill since we were having burgers and would have it going anyhow.
Went for a bath at 160 for just over 4 hours. Rinsed, dried, and out to the grill.
Just kept it out there long enough to get some color and then in for a rest.
Cracked it open to see what kind of a thing I had on my hands.
Sliced a few pieces of and was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. Not really bacon, not really porchetta, but cured, cooked pork can never be too bad, I suppose.
My wife said she didn't care much for the texture, so I took a few chunks and put them back on the grill to see if that helped things out and give me a plan for what to do with the rest of it.
Again, just enough to color it up a bit.
Got the thumbs up from the wife now. Seems much more like a thick cut bacon at this point.
Pretty much right after the pic, they started to unwind. I brought them in the house and just cut them up and was going to bag them.........saw the one last burger looking all sad and lonely.
Stood there in the kitchen eating the burger and pondering why I never really seem to lose weight.
Kind of a poorly planned mess of a project with a fairly happy ending.
I did the EQ method to determine my salt so I wasn't concerned with it being too salty. I thought it was too thin to really use as a true bacon, so said F it and decided to just skin it and roll it.
Rinsed, rolled, and tied.
Decided to just sous vide the poor little thing and finish it on the grill since we were having burgers and would have it going anyhow.
Went for a bath at 160 for just over 4 hours. Rinsed, dried, and out to the grill.
Just kept it out there long enough to get some color and then in for a rest.
Cracked it open to see what kind of a thing I had on my hands.
Sliced a few pieces of and was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. Not really bacon, not really porchetta, but cured, cooked pork can never be too bad, I suppose.
My wife said she didn't care much for the texture, so I took a few chunks and put them back on the grill to see if that helped things out and give me a plan for what to do with the rest of it.
Again, just enough to color it up a bit.
Got the thumbs up from the wife now. Seems much more like a thick cut bacon at this point.
Pretty much right after the pic, they started to unwind. I brought them in the house and just cut them up and was going to bag them.........saw the one last burger looking all sad and lonely.
Stood there in the kitchen eating the burger and pondering why I never really seem to lose weight.
Kind of a poorly planned mess of a project with a fairly happy ending.
