The Toast was so good! And the Bacon was per-fect, I love bacon like that, way more than the way I found it in the US dry as a crisp and super salty, here it had juice! it had taste!
Yeah, the UK does back bacon, while the US and Canada seem to love streaky bacon. They’re both the same area IIRC, but the back bacon just includes a chunk of meat along with the streaky fat part. This can be challenging when cooking, as the fat and the meat cook at different rates. When you fry it you have to render the fat at a very low heat, then raise the heat gently to cook the meat. If you do it just right you can get crispy fat and tender, chewy meat on the same piece. Typically in commercial kitchens they just oven cook it, which is easier to achieve a more consistent result, but I love doting over them in a frying pan.
You do need to be a little careful what you buy. Most bacon is cheap and injected with brine by an automated production process, whereas Dry Cured bacon is done by hand. It’s a little more expensive, but generally much better quality. The gold standard is that one little old butcher’s shop that has an old hand crank machine to slice you fresh, thick cuts of bacon - if you find a place like this, try their pork pies, especially when they’re fresh.
The Toast was so good! And the Bacon was per-fect, I love bacon like that, way more than the way I found it in the US dry as a crisp and super salty, here it had juice! it had taste!
Yeah, the UK does back bacon, while the US and Canada seem to love streaky bacon. They’re both the same area IIRC, but the back bacon just includes a chunk of meat along with the streaky fat part. This can be challenging when cooking, as the fat and the meat cook at different rates. When you fry it you have to render the fat at a very low heat, then raise the heat gently to cook the meat. If you do it just right you can get crispy fat and tender, chewy meat on the same piece. Typically in commercial kitchens they just oven cook it, which is easier to achieve a more consistent result, but I love doting over them in a frying pan.
You do need to be a little careful what you buy. Most bacon is cheap and injected with brine by an automated production process, whereas Dry Cured bacon is done by hand. It’s a little more expensive, but generally much better quality. The gold standard is that one little old butcher’s shop that has an old hand crank machine to slice you fresh, thick cuts of bacon - if you find a place like this, try their pork pies, especially when they’re fresh.