Send it to me.

Eileen, it's in the 80s here, how's the weather there? Maybe I should wait until February to mail it? (grin)

Annie

Annie, I'm amazed at what you do. I bet your Back Bacon wouldn't be too smokey for me. Try it with Eggs Benedict, Toasted Back Bacon and tomato Sandwiches or toasted Back Bacon and hard fried egg sandwiches.

Ann

Eggs Benedict, as Ann mentioned, would be my first choice.

There's also (dare I even say this?) Pizza! Breakfast Pizza or Hawaiian Pizza.... nice looking Canadian Bacon.

Nancy

I can dream. It's warm here too.

I like just a Canadian bacon sandwich. The ham frizzled in a frying pan, with mayo lettuce and tomato....preferably on white bread.
Looks wonderful!!

Eggs Benedict!!!! Oh yeah! Beautiful, Annie.

jude

Mix it with all those ducks and make cassoulet!

Lpink had a great idea or I could just take a road trip and raid the freezer.

Peppi, come on over, I can always make more. I was amazed at how easy it was.

Oh yeah, I could see it on a "BLT", yum, as soon as I get some fresh tomatoes.

Annie

mmmm mmmmmmmmm mmmmmmmmmmmmm! Nice! Will would go crazy for some of that. :-) He ordered some in Niagara Falls and I warned him that it wasn't THIS kind of canadian bacon - it was that other stuff with the coating (?) and he was NOT fond of it...:-)

Stacy, I'll bet Will got peameal bacon, it's not smoked, but it's brined and rolled in a cornmeal kind of coating?

That is a different, almost pickled flavor. I like it and made sure I got some for breakfast when I visited Chase in Toronto but if your mouth is expecting Canadian Bacon and it gets Peameal Bacon, it could be quite a surprise.

Poor Will...

Annie

yep, you're right Annie. Peameal bacon - is definitely the more correct term than "that other stuff with the coating"...LOL! that was it! Made him realize that he doesn't really like bacon in any way shape or form...;-)

Annie, I have smoked loin on my to do list for Fathers Day weekend. I had though of just smoking a big hunk of peameal but......I love my pea meal too much !

Toasted tomato sandwiches and Eggs Benedict are my favourite dishes but it's also very good served along side mac and cheese and really good on burgers.

OH WOW!!! That looks awesome Annie! Enjoy

Nitrites or no?
Curious about your brine recipe if you have time!

And, since I'd put money on the fact that you didn't go "buy" a pork loin for that, which of your wholesale cuts did you use?

Deanna (aka "Nosy")

Deanna, I have to confess, I did use "pink salt" because I used the recipe in "Charcuterie" and I'm just not confident enough to mess with a recipe until I make it the way it's written first.

However, the next time there will be no "pink salt" because it only gets brined for two days and then it dries for a day before smoking and it gets frozen right after that. It doesn't take 10 days or two weeks or any amount of time that should make it unsafe without the chemicals so my next one is all natural!

when I had my pig butchered I didn't get any pork chops because no one in my family really likes pork chops, I asked Carl to just cut them all into small boneless roasts. That's what I used, one of the roasts that Carl cut for me in place of the chops.

Annie

Oh dear, I forgot the recipe. I don't have it here anyway, it's at home, but it took a "large bunch" of fresh sage and another "large bunch" of fresh thyme and it smelled SOOOOO good...

Annie

We are on our way to pick up a pig this afternoon. I only had half the bacon and ham smoked. When I told the guy I wanted to play with my cheap electric smoker, he kind of snorted and agreed that at least I'd have SOME good bacon and ham, hehe. Annie, I'm sure I'll be in touch for help.

Never thought about Canadian bacon...mmmmm....

Thanks Annie.
I found a couple of "recipes" and I can work with "large bunch"! (Smile)
I just happen to have sage and thyme in abundance right now too.

Did you make yours from frozen pork?
One (and only one) of the sites I visited said not to use frozen, but no explanation why. Hmmmm.......

Deanna

yes, Katie, you will, and it'll be the stuff you made yourself, trust me.

That homemade/homesmoked bacon was so much better than the stuff from the store that I was amazed. In fact, Amanda and Mother stood at the kitchen counter and tore a big hunk of it apart, eating the lean streaks while it was still hot from the smoker.

I haven't done a ham yet, but I will! Oh, and Katie, don't forget about homemade Italian sausage too, so much better than the stuff from the store. It's probably the asiago chese and moscato wine....

I happen to have thew copy of Charcuterie home from the cottage becasue I want to start the curing process for a pork belly.

So here is the "Canadian" Bacon brine recipe.

1 gallon water
1 1/2 cups kosher salt
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 oz pink salt
1 large bunch fresh sage
1 large bunch fresh thyme
2 garlic cloves , peeled and lightly smashed

4 pounds pork loin , all fat removed.

Can't wait to try it!

Thanks, Sharon, you saved me from looking it up and typing it in tonight.

The fresh herbs are so aromatic and the whole thing smells wonderful, from brining to smoking.

Deanna, I used a frozen piece of pork, since I had that pig slaughtered last fall that's all I have is frozen pork.

Annie

Dear Annie, Yum!

Our 4H pigs usually came back over-smoked, but the friend who raised this hog said he's never had a complaint about this butcher. We'll see...

I have some fresh ham, too. This is gonna be fun. I just requested Charcuterie from one of our consortium libraries.

Thanks, RR! I wish you were closer, I'd share.

Katie, the only problem with borrowing that book is that once you get your hands on it, you're going to want your own copy.

One of the authors, Brian Polcyn, is a chef who had a restaurant in Michigan near Detroit called Five Lakes Grill. That closed in 2009 and promptly reopened as Cinco Lagos, which I understand means "Five Lakes" and he teaches charcuterie at Schoolcraft College here in Michigan.

Annie

Thanks chase and Annie. Good to know the frozen works just fine. My pig has been in the freezer since Feb. too, so I sure wasn't going to buy more for this.

Deanna

Oh man! I've have to get that electric smoker that you Tricia and I think Sharon have. Another vote for Eggs Benedict here! I'd add pizza with pineapple too but I know you don't like pizza...maybe for Elery and the kids.

David

It is my understanding that you do not want to omit the pink salt in recipes that call for it.

I don't exactly remember the why. But it is an intact memory, not a fuzzy one.
If you look at the amount called for and then think of the portion size you will consume in any one sitting, well there are probably more naturally occurring nitrites in a head of lettuce.

It does preserve the colour of the meat, so you don't get gray bacon or sausage, that is for certain.

OK folk silly question from this novice smoker. Is pink salt pink?

I bought a pork belly from a local butcher who makes all his own sausage. I asked him where I could get curing salt for smoked meats. He said it was hard to find but did sell me some of his. He didn't use the word "pink", nor did I, and this salt is white. Totally different texture than Kosher or table salt.

This fellow is a very well respected and experienced butcher and sausage maker , I can't imagine he sold ne the wrong thing but.............

Chase, you need the pink salt and/or stuff like it in cured and semi-cured sausages/hams/bacon/etc. Things that you hang to air dry, stuff that will be kept in the rafters all year.

So, today's home smoker needn't worry about it too much, I don't think. Except I'd be leery of omitting it from a recipe that had it in.

Morton sells a cure mix. If you go to their website there is a smattering of info on it.

Sorry, just re-read your post and see that I'm not answering it, heh.

No, pink salt is not pink...that is a reference to the fact that it maintains pink in the meat it is curing. So you don't get the grey sausage or bacon. Except when it (the salt) is artificially dyed pink so you don't fill your salt shaker with it I guess.

Pink salt is a mixture of table salt and sodium nitrate or nitrite. Nitrite is most common. Its also called Prague powder, probably only in the trade tho.

Oh, and for those worried about amount of nitrates/nitrites, pink salt is 94-95% salt and 4-5% nitrites. So very little goes into a batch of whatever.

Sodium nitrate and or nitrite is water soluble so any plant grown in soil that uptakes a lot of water has naturally occurring nitrites/nitrates. Lettuce is one. As I said earlier, your Caesar salad probably contains more nitrates/nitrites than your bacon and eggs, no matter who makes the bacon.

Celery is another veggie with lots of nitrates/nitrites. Of course depending on where it is grown...the soil it is grown in specifically.

Man, I ramble on and on when its late and I'm tired,eh?

Here is a link that might be useful: This is what I use.

Metaxa, my pink salt IS pink. At least mine is, it's Pepto Bismol pink and I'm told that the coloring is to prevent people from thinking it could possibly be anything else.

Morton's makes something called "Tender Quick", I think, and another item called "Sugar Cure". They are much the same in that they are nitrates used to cure meat and I don't know what color they are

When I made that Pancetta and it hung in the basement for 10 days, I didn't want to chance doing that without the "pink salt". The Canadian Bacon, though, that's cured in the fridge for 2 days, dried in the fridge for another day, then smoked and frozen. I'm leaving the cure out of the recipe the next time. I don't put it in sausage at all, but I haven't made any of the dry cured sausage yet, I'd have to add it to that just to feel comfortable, I'm afraid.

I get all my cures and sausage making supplies, including casings and pink salt from Butcher-Packer in Detroit, they have good prices, good service and a good product. They have a website and they call their pink salt "pink salt".

If their shipping is awful to you, holler, I'd be glad to get it and ship it and it would probably be a lot cheaper.

Annie

Thanks, Annie...we have a pretty good sausage/smoking/curing type supplier in Vancouver so I'm good.

Ya, I mentioned in my post that pink salt is sometimes dyed. The stuff I get isn't but there you go.

If I had a recipe from a trusted source that omitted the pink I'd try it. I'd leave the pink salt in any random recipe I found on the Internets tho.

(It prevents botulism!!!!!)

!!!!!

Somebody look up how many in NA got botulism last year...just to put it in perspective.

Hint: not very many at all considering all the home canning/smoking/preserving going on.

I ended up using the Morton's Tender Quick (already had some in the cupboard) along with their recipe from the website for mine. I added a "large bunch" of sage and thyme. Grin!
Just got it started on Saturday afternoon, so it will be a few more days.......

I think I'll pop it in the smoker with Apple chips.....
Sounds yummy!

Will post when done!

Deanna

There are about 20 cases per year in the U.S. of foodborne botulism, some from home processed foods but some from things like baked potatoes left in a restaurant kitchen wrapped in foil and that carrot juice just a couple of years ago. When there is an "outbreak" it tends to be something like one village in Alaska with some bad home canned salmon.

In spite of the low incidence, botulism is a horrible thing and can be deadly, so I'd never try to cure that pancetta 10 days unrefrigerated in the basement without some kind of preservative, but the Canadian bacon is simply pork left in the refrigerator in a brine for two days, dried for a day, then smoked and frozen. I've left pork roast in the refrigerator that long without brine at all, so I'm relatively confident in that.

That's why I alway sfollow the safety guidelines when canning and preserving low acid items like vegetables or meats, my chance of botulism is low, but it's a chance I'd rather not take.

In something like salsa, which is not heated but eaten straight from the jar, or pancetta, which is cooked but not long enough to make me comfortable, I'm not taking that chance.

Annie

Thanks guys.

Glad to hear that pink salt doesn't necessarily have to be pink! The butcher I got it from is well known for his sausages, smoked meats etc. so I was pretty sure it was the right stuff.

I have my pork belly brining right now. I'll let you know how it goes.

As for the nitrates, I'm not at all concerned. I'd rather be controlling the amount I add to my home smoked bacon than eating the amount that is in commercially prepared products!