No, today’s blog entry isn’t about frying up some bacon. Who doesn’t like bacon? It’s delicious on it’s own, it adds tons of depth and flavor to a multitude of recipes, and best of all, it’s good for you (as long as you have a shortage of pork fat and salt in your diet as I do)! Isn’t that terrific?

Really, there’s only one thing better than that delicious ‘platter bacon’ you buy from under the glass in the your local butcher shop or supermarket and that’s bacon you made yourself. Homemade bacon doesn’t shrivel up and shed off a bunch of water when you fry it . Also you can cut it into bacon strips, chunks, lardons, or use your imagination. The fact is that it is more versatile and more delicious than that stuff you buy at the store. Additionally, you can season our bacon to your taste. If you thought you liked bacon, just wait until you try your own homemade bacon! It’s easy to make but there are a couple of special things you need. This recipe is based “Charcuterie” by Michael Ruhlman & Bryan Polcyn which is an excellent book for those who like to dabble in such things. The two tricky things about this recipe are the pork belly and the pink salt. Pork belly may be available at your local butcher, Asian market, or you might have to ask them to special order some for you. Pink salt can possibly be obtained from your local butcher, but more often than not, you need to order it online. I ordered it from: http://www.sausagemaker.com and this company calls theirs, “instacure #1”.