Chinese Style Bacon

Chinese Style Bacon

by calum
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Chinese Style Bacon

An interesting variation on the normal bacon cure … this is taken from a couple of recipes glued together. It works equally well for back or streaky bacon.
Cuisine Chinese
Servings 4 kilo
Author calum

Ingredients

  • 4 kg Pork Loin
  • 450 g Demerara Sugar
  • 350 g Sea Salt fine
  • 1 tbsp Prague Powder Number One
  • 6 Sichuan Chilli dried
  • 2 Cinnamon Stick
  • 2 tsp Cloves
  • 6 Star Anise
  • 2 tsp Garlic Powder

Instructions

Curing

  • Use a spice grinder or coffee grinder to powder the Sichuan chillis, cinnamon, cloves and star anise. For the cinnamon I use a rolling pin to break it up a bit first.
  • Combine the sugar, salt, curing salt and all the spices … I use my KitchenAid to make sure they are well mixed.
  • Cut the pork loin into two equal pieces, and divide the curing mix in two as well.
  • Using either ziplock bags or a vacuum sealer, put 1/4 of the cure into the bag, lay one of the loins pieces onto the cure, and then spread the next 1/4 of the cure on top.  It is a bit fiddly in a bag, but rub the cure in so all parts of the meat are covered.  Then make sure there is a pretty even spread of cure, top and bottom.  wipe the mouth of the bag to remove curing mix … or it will be hard to seal the bag.  For a ziplock, remove excess air and seal … if you are using a vacuum sealer then you will be removing all the air 🙂  
  • Repeat for the second piece of loin.
  • Place in a fridge for 7 days, turning the meat every day.

Drying

  • After seven days, remove the meat from the bags and rinse off the curing mixture.
  • Pat dry with kitchen roll  and then place each piece on a wire rack, and return to the fridge for two days to air dry.
  • After two days you can slice the bacon.  I tend to bag and vacuum seal 10 slice batches, label it and freeze it.