Bacon...

Thought I'd share this with you all while I'm in the middle of preparing it.

This is bacon as we know it in England, loin meat (often with an inch or two of belly attached) with the rind on.

What you call bacon we call "streaky bacon".

The photos (not white balanced) are what remains of a larger loin joint I finished curing a couple of days ago. There's a belly joint, rind on, curing in the fridge at the moment.

I've cut four thick "chops" off that joint, to be slow-fried on a low heat. We're having our "bacon chops" for dinner with croquet potatoes and garden peas.

We began curing our own bacon (and making our own sausages) not long after getting married, because the shop or supermarket "bacon" became a joke - thin, injected with brine and (impossibly) "cured" in a few hours, then when fried producing some white gunk and lots of water. As far as I was concerned that was just boiling pork, not frying bacon.

You can get proper dry cured bacon from a store, of course, but there's a premium added to the price and the rashers are often thin to the point of transparency.

So we make our own, and here's how:

Get a nice decent-sized pork loin - or belly, the process is the same; remove the skin now if you don't want the rind; take a handful of Kosher or sea salt (about two thirds of that if using table salt), a handful of brown (Demerara) sugar; mix them well together then rub into every surface of the meat, getting it into all the nooks and crannies. Use more, if you run out.

If you can, vacuum-pack the meat, if not use cling-film, wrapping the meat well in three or four layers and keeping as much air out as you can. Then put it in the fridge and turn it over ever day. Eight days should be enough to cure a small joint (like mine), anything up to fourteen days for a really large joint.

Once it's cured, take it out, wash it in running cold water, then cut a bit off to try. Fry on a low heat. Too salty? Just soak it in cold water for an hour, longer for larger joints. Then, in all cases, dry the joint off and put it back in the fridge, uncovered, for another 24 hours.

You can smoke it if you like, though we prefer it "as is".

The bacon will freeze well, and of course you can cut any size rasher you like (put the unfrozen joint in the freezer for half an hour to make for easier slicing).

After every frying, you should collect a nice amount of tasty bacon fat. Great for fried bread and eggs - though I like to roll potatoes in it before they're roasted.

In England we like bacon in sandwiches (or sarnies, should you ever visit) with a nice helping of HP sauce. Food for the gods.

Fancy giving it a shot?