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.
Servings: 4 kilo
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.