In this installment
Bacon bits
About Arkansas Peppered Bacon
What makes one bacon better than another?
Bacon Hash Recipe
Bacon bits
Maker: Jim Ruff, Morrilton, Arkansas
Cure: Wet cured for four or five days in a brine mixture of sugar and spices
Smoke: Hickory for 24 hours
Taste: Rich and meaty with lingering pricklings of black pepper in the finish. Very complex.
About Arkansas Peppered Bacon
One of my long-time favorites, this special pepper-coated bacon is cured and smoked in the foothills of the Ozarks. The company was founded by Felix Schlosser, who came over from Germany in 1922. He settled in the area around Little Rock, opening a meat market in the small town of Morrilton, about fifty miles northwest of the capital. Today, the company is run by Jim Ruff, who still uses the recipes Felix developed all those years ago.
They start with a wet cure—the trimmed bellies go into a brine of water seasoned with salt, sugar and spices (the exact proportions are still a family secret) for four or five days. After a drying period that al- lows the smoke to penetrate properly (all good bacon makers do this) the slabs are smoked over hickory for just under 24 hours, then rolled in brown sugar and hand-rubbed with cracked black pepper.
There are so many things you can do with this bacon that I can’t even begin to list them all here. I love it because it’s less sweet but nicely spicy and very meaty, so much so that I sometimes don’t get as much bacon fat if I’m cooking the bacon as an ingredient rather than just to eat. (Generally, given the state of the bacon world, I’d class that as a “good problem.”) It’s great on everything from burgers (especially with a well-aged cheddar) to egg dishes or just about anything else.
One really great way to use it is in the braised bacon recipe from Molly Stevens’ award winning book, All About Braising. Molly learned the dish while working with Judy Rodgers at Zuni Café in San Francisco. The recipe is far too involved to recount here, but basically it calls for a nice slow braise of a large chunk of bacon with vegetables in broth. What comes out of the pot then becomes the basis for an American version of pasta carbonara. The braising enriches the flavor of the bacon in a big way, and I really like the way the pepper livens up the carbonara.
What makes one bacon better than another? Part II
The Smoke
Although surrounding oneself with and absorbing significant amounts of smoke is generally ac- knowledged to reduce average human life span, it serves a different purpose with pork. In the old days, smoke was important not just to enhance the flavor of the bacon, but also to reduce the risk of spoilage. These days all the bacon makers will tell you that the smoke is about flavor, color and tradition. Although there are a few exceptions, most American bacons are smoked, anywhere from a few hours to a few days. Different producers use different woods, and each wood brings its own flavor to the bacon.
In 1920, A.W. Fulton wrote in Home Pork Making that, “cloudy and damp days are best for smoking meat. It seems to receive the smoke more freely in such weather, and there is less danger of fire.” He goes on to say that “the smoke need not be kept up constantly, unless one is a in a hurry to sell the meat. Half a day at a time on several days a week, for two or three weeks, will give the bacon that bright gin- gerbread color generally preferred.” By contrast, for those in more of a hurry, “The work of smoking may be finished up in a week, if one prefers, by keeping up the smoke all day and at night until bedtime.”
I don’t know of anyone smoking for such a long time today. However, there’s a big difference between small-scale bacon makers who smoke for a few days and the mass-market bacon makers. Large-scale producers don’t baby-sit a small smoldering fire in order to coax out the subtle flavors and nuances of the meat. Instead, they use large stainless steel rooms with computer controlled smoke and humidity systems. Air control systems regulate the heat and smoke to exact levels, eliminating any variation in the finished bacon. If they don’t get enough smoke flavor, they inject the bacon with liquid smoke.Much as one would like to think that smoking meat in the modern era is a science, most every artisan bacon maker I’ve talked to says that it’s still essentially an art and a craft. Although the equipment in which it’s done has come along way, it’s not all that different today than it was 200 years ago.
Bacon Hash Recipe
An excellent way to take advantage of the bacon flavor.
4 tablespoons rendered bacon fat
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
1 medium red bell pepper, coarsely chopped
1 stalk celery, coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons flour
1 1⁄2 cups chicken broth
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
10 ounces sliced bacon (about 5–7 slices), lightly cooked and chopped
2 pounds potatoes, steamed over salted water until tender, diced with the skins on
1⁄4 cup heavy cream Coarse sea salt to taste
Melt the bacon fat in a large skillet over moderate heat. Add the onion, bell pepper and celery and cook, covered for 5-6 minutes, until soft. Sprinkle the flour over the wilted vegetables and stir well to avoid lumps. Cook for another 4-5 minutes, stirring constantly to keep from sticking, until the flour blends with the bacon fat into a thickened roux.
Add the broth, a bit at a time, stirring well after each addition so the mixture stays smooth and creamy. The sauce should coat the back of your spoon before you add more liquid. Stir in the Worcestershire sauce.
Continue simmering the sauce over moderate heat until it thickens, about 5 minutes. Add the bacon and potatoes and mix well. Add the cream and cook, stirring, a few more minutes. Stir in salt and freshly ground pepper to taste.
Serve immediately, or cool and reheat in a skillet until you get a nice golden brown crust.
Serves 4 -6 as a main dish.