Making your own bacon's surprisingly easy and offers creative variety

My lesson of the day:  The Chinese don't eat bacon.

This was a surprise.  One thing I've always respected about the Chinese … they like their pork.  I just
assumed that they wouldn't have missed this classic preservation method.  Wrong, my friend Joe tells me.  He's an Irishman working in Shenzhen, missing his bacon, and I thought he could use the knowledge imparted to me by the master butcher at Newlyn's Pig Perfection course.

The basic concept is simple:  Get some good pork belly.  As with anything, the better the quality of the meat, the better the end result.  Whip up a curing mixture.  Cure it for a week in the fridge.  Rinse.  Dry.  Eat.

On our cooking course my husband and I worked with two different pieces of belly.  Both about six inches wide by 10 inches long, skin on.  We did this because we wanted to try different flavourings.  And, frankly, because we didn't want to screw up a beautiful piece of meat with any failed experimentation.  But once you're comfortable with the process, there's no reason not to do a whole belly.

Our version did not use saltpetre (potassium nitrate), which is the magic ingredient you need for proper preservation.  Thus this version doesn't keep as long.  If you search the internet you can find all sorts of "proper" recipes, but saltpetre can be problematic to get.  Thus I'm sharing the standard grocery shelf version.

The base of any cure is salt and sugar. Good proportions to start with are 60g rock salt, 40g table salt and 40g sugar.  To this, add the seasonings of your choice.  Pepper, sage, thyme and bay are classics.  Piers went down this route in our test.  I went for rosemary and a tablespoon of maple syrup.  The only limit is your imagination, and common culinary sense.  Bash up whatever herbs you're using in a mortar and pestle and mix in with the salt and sugar.

Now, slather it all over your piece of pork belly.  Put it all in a tightly-sealed plastic bag.  Put it in the fridge.  Shake it about and turn it over once each day.  If you get a lot of excess liquid forming in the bag, pour it off.

After a week, take out the piece of belly and rinse off the cure.  Trim the skin off the meat.  Dry it with some kitchen roll (paper towel).  Now you need to let it dry in the air for a couple of days in a cool, dry place.  Laying it on the grill of a roasting pan and leaving it in an unused oven works well.  It should shed some more liquid.  At the and of a couple of days, pat it dry again and put it back in the fridge.

Though the salt should have preserved it for a while, without the saltpetre you can't absolutely guarantee that all bacteria have been eliminated, so it's best to use your home made version within a few days.

The last essential requirement, of course, is a good knife.  Thin strips to go with your eggs at breakfast, lardons for some pasta carbonara, medium slices for a sandwich.  The world's your oyster.  Or, rather, your pork belly.