Cooking Bacon

 

I cut the entire package of bacon in half with the scissors before I cook it. It makes cooking evenly so much easier and makes the pieces easier to handle in the pot too.

I have recently started cooking my bacon in a little water to start with, just a couple of inches, enough to boil it for about 5 mins. This removes a lot of the salt and nitrates in the bacon. After boiling it, I drain off the water. I keep this, let it cool and remove the fat from the top. Bacon fat is prime stuff! None of it gets wasted and the boiled fat has less nitrates and salts in it. I know this because I can taste the difference. I don't have anything against salt but I like my pink Himalayan salt, not the curing salt. I'm more concerned with the nitrates.

After the water is drained off, the bacon keeps frying in the pan normally until it's nice and brown. I fish out all the bacon pieces and scrape the bottom of the pan. Then I pour off the grease with all the little pieces in it. That's great stuff too but, because it has the little bacon pieces in it and is not clean rendered fat, it needs to be kept in the fridge. I usually separate it into little pieces and freeze it. I have a bag in the freezer full of bacon fat pieces for cooking. It gets used all the time, for everything. 

 

 

Boiled Pork Buttons

This morning, while cooking bacon, I also boiled a package of pre-seasoned pork buttons. I boil these for about 15 minutes. I find the seasoning a bit too strong for my taste. Boiling removed a lot of it and tenderizes the buttons. I drain off that water too, cool it and skim off the rendered fat. Today I have three bowls of fat to cool. The boiled bacon water, frying bacon fat and water from the pork buttons. I am considering combining the three into one pot, boiling it again to render the fat again. Then cooling and removing one chunk of seasoned pork fat. I could render it a few times, cleaning it thoroughly but I don't see any reason to do that. I'll probably freeze it in pieces and add it all to my bag of pieces in the freezer. No reason to just make more work for myself unnecessarily.  

I like to cook ahead like this, so I always have choices in the fridge, ready to go. It makes this diet so much easier to do. It makes any lifestyle easier  to have the food cooked ahead of time, ready to eat.