BACON!!!

It is pretty miserable out, it is 1 PM, and the temp is 10 degrees. I’m looking for excuses to run the oven and add some heat to the kitchen, so perhaps I’ll get a start on my evening cooking by baking off some bacon.

I am serving a spinach salad with hot bacon dressing as a side dish this evening and hence will require some bacon drippings to build my dressing.

Why bake the bacon and not fry?

• I’m tired of second and third degree burns.
• I hate taking a shower after frying bacon.
• Stove cleanup is not my favorite thing.
• I want CRISP SLABS of bacon, not soggy curls.
• I am lazy.

Back whence one could go out to dinner; I had a favorite steak house that served 1/4″ thick slabs of bacon, seasoned and cooked to perfection as an appetizer. The servers there finally got tired of me asking how this was done and got the chef to visit my table to explain it to me. I’ve modified his method slightly as I do not have a 1200 degree oven. Perhaps someday in the future, I can visit that establishment again.

From Wikipedia:

Bacon is a type of salt-cured pork made from various cuts, typically the belly or less fatty parts of the back. It is eaten as a side dish (particularly in breakfasts), used as a central ingredient (e.g., the bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich (BLT), or as a flavouring or accent (as in bacon crumbles in a salad).

Bacon is also used for barding and larding roasts, especially game, including venison and pheasant, and may also be used to insulate or flavour roast joints by being layered onto the meat. The word is derived from the Proto-Germanic *bakkon, meaning “back meat”.

Bacon, Simple, Easy, Crispy

Smokey, Salty, Cripsy, Meaty, but not so simple to cook

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 5 minutes mins

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Total Time 20 minutes mins

Course Breakfast, Dinner, Ingredient, Lunch, Salad, Snack

Cuisine American, British

Servings 4 People

Calories 1891 kcal

Equipment

• 1 sheet pan
• 1 cooling rack to fit the above sheet pan

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x

• 1 lb Bacon Thick Cut, Good Stuff

Instructions

 

• Insert the cooling rack into the sheet pan
• Lay bacon onto the cooling rack, not overlapping
• Insert pan, rack, bacon into the oven, set the temp to 400
• Set your timer to 15 minutes
• Check the bacon for desired crispness, cook additional time for additional crispness. (DO NOT OVERCOOK / BURN, that is a crime)
• Remove from oven and move bacon onto a plate with paper towels to finish draining.

Notes

This is a basic technique, not a recipe.  I like this whence I can get a side portion of bacon and cut my slices to my thickness (ala Steakhouse Bacon)

One can kick things up a notch and season the bacon:

Dark Brown sugar for a sweeter bacon

Chili flake for a spicy kick

Black Pepper for that unique pepper taste

Liquid Smoke for EXTRA SMOKEY flavor. 

 

 

 

Nutrition

Calories: 1891kcalCarbohydrates: 6gProtein: 57gFat: 180gSaturated Fat: 60gTrans Fat: 1gCholesterol: 299mgSodium: 3003mgPotassium: 898mgVitamin A: 168IUCalcium: 23mgIron: 2mg

Keyword Bacon

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