Whole Foods Dry Rub Black Forest: This very thick, brown bacon from the bulk meat case certainly looks promising, but it’s a bit too sweet and lacks punch. A 14-gram slice has 80 calories, 260 mg sodium, and it’s $12.99 for 3 pounds. Safeway Thick Sliced Hickory Smoked: I’m annoyed by the super-long slices that don’t fit on a rack or regular pan, but this is actually a good mainstream-style bacon with all the right flavor notes. A 7.5-gram slice has 40 calories, 180 mg sodium. Even though it’s a bit too salty, it has a clean, smoky flavor, and the thin slices cook up nice and crispy. Hormel Natural Choice Original Uncured: Hormel hits the mark with this one. A 15-gram slice has 90 calories, 240 mg sodium. It’s lightly smoked, lightly salted and slightly sweet. Trader Joe’s Applewood Uncured Bacon: I love the fresh, ham-like flavor of this budget-priced bacon. One 10-gram slice has 50 calories 190 mg sodium. Master Cut Pacific Coast Selections Natural Applewood Smoked: This thin-style bacon is addictively meaty and smoky, yet light on the palate. $5.39 for 8 ounces at Whole Foods, in the packaged meats section. A 14-gram slice has 60 calories, 290 mg sodium. And I explored the flavor difference between bacon cured with nitrates or nitrites, and those cured with the more natural elements of lactic acid and celery juice - only to discover that the natural versions scored higher, mainly because the pork flavor was fresher and more pronounced.Īpplegate Organics Uncured Thick Cut: Of the four bacon types I tried from Whole Foods, this is the best, with dense smoke flavor and just the right salt quotient. So, I rounded up 16 types of bacon in every price range for a tasting. Some are too salty, some too sweet and some lack the authentic smokiness that bacon lovers crave. I want the real thing: meaty, smoky, pork with just the right touch of salt and fat to make me want more.īut not every bacon hits the mark. Supermarkets stock plenty of bacon-ish variations - turkey impostors, maple-tinged strips and even precooked varieties - but when it comes to bacon, I don’t compromise. If you are chilling multiple bellies, set each one in its own container rather than stacking the meat directly on top of each other.The tomatoes on my vine are still green, but I’m already anticipating the perfect BLT, made with garden-fresh heirloom tomatoes and piles of crisp, salty bacon.Keep the refrigerator's temperature at 40 degrees Fahrenheit and let the pork belly sit until its core temperature drops to 42 degrees, which will help kill bacteria.To further reduce the chance of cross-contamination, set it in the meat compartment, away from other products. For a quicker chill, set the container inside the fridge wherever it is coldest. Once home, place the pork belly in a sealable container to keep your fridge clean and prevent cross-contamination with other items.In either case, bring along a cooler stocked with ice to keep the pork belly relatively cool on the ride home if it takes you more than half an hour. But if you buy direct from a farm, ask the farmer how long ago the hog was slaughtered, because you need to chill your meat within 24 hours of that time. If you purchased your pork belly from a commercial vendor other than a farm and plan on curing it as soon as you get home, skip this step, since the meat has already been chilled.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |