Pea Meal Bacon
It's a regional thing from Ontario, I learned to eat it when I was a kid, visiting my Great Grandmother in Buckhorn. Elery got his first experience with it when we went to Toronto to visit Sharon/Chase, and liked it. You can't buy it here, though, and I've never seen it anywhere else. Most people haven't even heard of it, so we make our own.
Pork loins have been on sale here, so we got a couple, mixed up the brine and waited. One loin was brined two days, then smoked, it became Canadian Bacon:
The other loin was brined an extra day, rolled in cornmeal and left to dry in the refrigerator overnight, then sliced and packaged. That's the pea meal bacon, it used to be covered with ground peas, as the name suggests, but cornmeal is commonly used now. It's not smoked, so it's not cooked, we package it, freeze it, and it cooked in just a few minutes when we want it, usually for breakfast.
Elery has a pork butt in the refrigerator in brine, it'll go into the smoker tomorrow to become "ham", or a good substitute, while I have to get started on a brine for corned beef, St. Patrick's Day is coming up!
Annie
Comments (14)
9 years ago
9 years agoRelated Discussions
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Chas, I actually have two meat slicers. I have one small household type slicer, but the "deck" isn't big enough, so I can only get a 6 inch slice of bacon or whatever. It's easy to use, difficult to disassemble and clean but works nicely for small projects.
The second slicer comes from my local online auction, a local deli went out of busines and just sold all their equipment. Most of it was old, like this slicer, but it still works like a charm. It's just like the one Elery used when he worked for the Italian grocery when he was a teen, so he uses it. It weighs a LOT, so we keep it on a stand in the garage and use it there. It's a Globe brand, and came with an old Dayton scale. The scale isn't super accurate, can only be adjusted to 1/4 pound increments, but's good enough when weighing things like a bucket of potatoes or cabbage for 50 pounds of sauerkraut.
This is today's project, ready to go into the smoker, it's been brining for 4 or 5 days now. It's a butt/shoulder, but for all intents and purposes it'll be ham after smoking:
Normally we grow our own pork, but with Elery's knee replacement in the fall, we had to find a farm with a pig for sale! Right now several of the local meat packaging places are having their yearly "pork sale", where you can buy a whole or half hog, packaged, for $1.49 a pound, sometimes less. You do have to pay more if you want things like bacon and ham smoked, that's usually about 60-90 cents a pound.
Twofur, I like this recipe and I actually had fresh thyme and sage, so I used that. It's still fine with dried herbs, just extra good with the fresh ones!
Twofur, I use this recipe:
Canadian Bacon or Peameal Bacon
For the brine:
2 liters water or 2 quarts of water
70 grams or 2.5 ounces (5 tablespoons Morton’s) kosher salt
30 grams or 1 ounce (2 tablespoons) sodium nitrite (I use DQ Cure #1) or Insta cure.
125 grams sugar or 4 ounces (1/2 cup)
5 cloves garlic smashed with the flat side of a knife
2 bay leaves
1 large bunch of sage (optional)
7 or 8 thyme sprigs (optional)
1 lemon halved (optional)
Combine the brine ingredients in a pot and bring it to a simmer, stirring to dissolve the salt and sugar. Remove it from the heat, allow it to cool, then chill it in the refrigerator.
Submerge the pork loin in the brine (or put it all in a large zip top bag) and refrigerate for 72 hours (give or take a few hours depending on your schedule).
Remove the loin from the brine, rinse it, pat it dry, and refrigerate it uncovered for 4 hours or up to a day.
For Canadian Bacon: hot smoke (230 degrees) the loin to an internal temperature of 145 to 150 degrees F. or 60 to 65 degrees C. (Usually takes me 2 to 3 hours)
For peameal bacon, roll the loin in cornmeal to coat. Cut into slices and saute or grill.
In both cases, refrigerate the bacon until ready to cut and serve, either cold or reheated.
Remember, though, that the peameal bacon isn't cooked, as it spends no time in the hot smoke, so you have to cook that before consuming. I just toss a slice or two into a hot pan and it's done in a minute or two, before the eggs are done!
I did leave out the lemon, as Mother is allergic, and I didn't use the "cure" or "pink salt", as I knew I would slice and freeze it right away, I didn't need the preservative qualities that provides. I brined the Canadian Bacon for 48 hours, the Peameal for one day longer, and both in the refrigerator, so there was no chance of spoilage.
Annie
- 9 years ago
9 years ago- 9 years ago
Shirl, we put the smoker out in the pole barn, it's not attached but close enough that a trip out to check on things isn't too bad. Elery definitely put on a coat and gloves, though, it was 15F this morning when he started that smoker. There's nothing quite like the homemade stuff, though, is there? I'm sorry you missed out on a season's worth of "curin' n smokin'" though. I wish you were closer, I'd be happy to share!
I think of all the cookbooks I have, "Charcuterie" is the one I use most. I think fondly of Larry Engelhardt when I use it, his wife Janet posted at the old Forum before she died, and he came to a couple of forum get togethers. It was a gift from Larry, who lived close to the restaurant owned by Brian Polycyn. Unfortunately, that restaurant closed, but the book is wonderful.
Today's "ham" came out nicely too, a little salty so the next one will be brined 3 days instead of 5, and see if that's better. Still yummy and amazing, and glazed with local maple syrup.
Lizbeth, the pea meal bacon doesn't taste like bacon or ham, it's more like a slice of pork loin, but there's that cured flavor, it doesn't really taste like anything else I've had.
Annie
9 years ago- 9 years agolast modified: 9 years ago
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