Home cured and smoked bacon

The current Covoid-19 outbreak has made our busy summer season into a very long and frugal holiday so we have time to experiment with techniques and ideas we would normally find difficult to fit in.

Kindly a few weeks ago a friend brought round a loin of pork (traded for toilet roll and a mixing desk)and it has become a few different things.

One half of it (minus the skin) was put in a brine of malt extract, celery seed, bay leaf and cloves for three days. After another day out of its brine to dry off in the fridge we smoked the piece for 8 hrs in our cold smoker.

The results are delicious and it became part of the above breakfast with corn bread, scrambled bantam eggs and spinach.

It's easy to do and half a loin gave us at least 50 slices. The other half loin has gone into some pigeon salami which is drying in the loft, some kebabs for the bbq and the skin has been boiled and dehydrated into crispy pork bits of which a recipie will follow.