Oh man tasty. Lean pork put to good use. Brown sugar for flavor. Cured.
Looks great. Recipe please?
Well, I sorta winged it. But here goes.
- Any large chunk of lean pork. Stuff is super cheap. You can get large pork tenderloin roasts for under $1 per pound. BTW, this is the exact same process for normal bacon, so substitute a full pork belly if you want normal bacon.
- Trim any chunks of fat off it. Unlikely to be any, due to the way this meat is sold.
- Rub it with the rub below. The pink salt is necessary. Don't use all of that rub - just enough to have a nice coating on the meat. Save the rest of the rub for the next one
- After coating with rub, add brown sugar, maple syrup, etc. Not too much - the rub will be infusing these flavors into the meat fairly efficiently.
- Put in zip lock freezer bags (or vacuum bags, which I did) and flip every day or two. For every inch thick, add a week. If it's 1.5" thick (mine) 10 days is good). You'll notice immediately there is juice generated out of the meat, that's normal as the salt enters. Leave the juice, just keep flipping.
- Remove, cook in smoker or oven at 200F until the center is 150F. I smoked with apple wood.
- Eat like there is no tomorrow. Gobble Gobble.
Basic Dry Cure (from Ruhlman's Charcuterie)
- 1# kosher salt
- 8 ounces table sugar
- 8 tsp pink salt (this is NOT himalayan salt, it's sodium nitrite / prague #1 ).
Lookin' good!! Similar process to the Buckboard bacon I make with Pork Butt. I've been wanting to try it with tenderloin. If your cure amounts are correct for the thickness and weight of the meat i dont think you will need to cure as long. Maybe 6-7 days
Per ONE pound of pork loin or boneless pork butt:
1 Tablespoon of Tenderquick
1 teaspoon of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of maple sugar
I always soak mine in water for a couple hours after it is cured and then put in fridge uncovered over night to allow the surface to dry and redistribute the the juices.
Thanks! I assume the 10 day curing process is while refrigerated, correct?
Good point. Better to cure for a couple days too long than not enough.I cured for 8 days for this. I'm not sure if you can "overcure". For certain, you can undercure. I made bacon with belly last year and the cure didn't get all the way to the center.
I probably should have soaked mine a bit before I ate it. Tasted great yesterday, but woke up today with dry mount from the salt. Well, I did eat a lot of it.
Good point. Better to cure for a couple days too long than not enough.
Good point. Better to cure for a couple days too long than not enough.
Ok, here’s my Canadian Bacon story - 1970’s, my Dad is taking me and my two younger brothers up to Canada in his new Bayliner he and a couple buddies purchased for family fun. We were in the Puget Sound area and were boating our way up the islands to Canada for summer vacation.
My brothers and I just LOVED Canadian Bacon pizza. You know the one - has pineapple on it, kids love it.
So we finally work our way up to Canada. So interesting, a different country for a 14 year kid. We tied up at the dock, and once my Dad finished registering we walked up into town to get Pizza!
So we sit at the table, and first thing we tell the gal waiting on us is WE WANT CANADIAN BACON! So she looks at us and says, “You must be Americans”. We had a weird face as I looked at my Dad and brothers befuddled... We asked her how she could tell..... she said “you called it Canadian Bacon”. .....
Huh? “Well what do you call it?” She replied “We call it ham!”
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