My wife is an exceedingly busy executive who brings home work almost every day that she isn't traveling. She brings so much work that it makes me feel guilty when I don't bring home work from the farm. Occasionally, just to show that I'm an overachiever too, I take something home to work on.
Today I brought home the cured pork belly featured in this earlier post. My plan is to smoke it all in my Bradley Smoker, but first I have to dry it out a bit so that it develops a nice shiny skin (called a "pellicle") that will not become pitted and dull in the smoker.
Here you see the belly (two sides from one hog cut into 5 pieces) as it appeared 15/ 20 minutes ago in my garage refrigerator where I set it to spend the night alongside of pickled ginger, two bottles of god awful ale that I will never drink but am too parsimonious to dump, and a rather doleful bottle of Pelligrino water that I am hoping will rouse itself enough to inspire the pork to form a pellucid pellicle worthy of their shared phonetic or etymological heritage.
4 comments:
I thought my homemade bacon was noticeably better once I started including this step. The first few times I made it, I just patted it dry before smoking.
I hate to see your porcine pellicle so boxed in, so I volunteer to take that godawful Hop Devil off your hands in the interest of more lebensraum for thine schwein.
I would love a tried and true recipe for a Pork Belly which I am truly anxious to make. I don't have a smoker and don't want to grill it low for hours. Sorry if this came twice i don't think it took before.
Agree completely about the importance of a good pellicle. I can't get such a deep, golden brown without a day or so hanging before the sides hit the smoke. I hang unsmoked bacon for a few days as well just to firm up the texture a bit.
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