Morning for Bacon
Just in time for Sunday brunch is a post about bacon. Yay, bacon!
Very few ingredients inspire such irrational exuberance as slices of this cured and smoked pork belly. And on one level I can totally understand it; bacon is delicious. It’s smoky, salty, meaty, crispy and chewy all at the same time. It’s been the downfall of many once-vegetarians. Some have even labeled it a gateway meat.
But you know what? I like my bacon as bacon. It was very clever when fat-washing infusions were developed and one could have bacon-flavored bourbon (and a host of other interesting spirits), but now it’s feeling a bit played out. I have no interest in baconnaise, bacon-flavored popcorn or bacon air either. When it’s disembodied from its physical form, I have little love for the stuff.
Well, that is, except for one thing.
There is nothing quite like cooking eggs in rendered bacon grease. Thinking about it, “Grease” sounds too pejorative for this magnificent substance. “Bacon fat” is more stately, but perhaps it could use a makeover starting with a new name.
Whether you fry eggs or scramble them, bacon fat adds its distinctive perfume to its breakfast plate companion. You could even say that it is the bacon fat that really ties everything together. Because you can cook your potatoes in the stuff as well.
Now I’m no chemist, scientist, nutritionist or doctor. But from what I’ve come to understand, cooking with rendered bacon fat is actually healthier than cooking with salted butter. For proof I offer this questionable table of figures plucked from the internet.
However even if cooking with bacon fat isn’t healthy, it’s simple and delicious.
And if you are in the practice of preparing and eating bacon, I sincerely hope you aren’t wasting any of its precious fat. Don’t forget, a farmer toiled for months to feed and nurture this animal so it would grow into the fatty and delicious bacon. Not to mention that an animal died for your pleasure, and its sacrifice should be honored.
My trouble is that I’ve always had a difficult time cooking bacon well. I blame it on a childhood where we didn’t eat that many pork products in the home. A Jewish upbringing can be brutal on a kid. I’ve watched people cook bacon in a frying pan with grace and élan. With very little effort or attention they have been able to pull perfect pieces of bacon out of the pan, time and time again. I have no idea how they do it.
Even when I cut up the bacon into little strips for lardons, it’s a sloppy affair, where some small pieces get very browned while others are still limp and floppy with raw white fat.
The only place I’ve had success is in the oven, with the simple cooking technique espoused by Cooks Illustrated. One is instructed to preheat the oven to 400 degrees cook the bacon for six minutes, and then rotate the pan to cook until it’s done (an additional five to ten minutes depending on the thickness of the bacon.
Like most Cook’s Illustrated recipes, it has never been this easy for me.
And I have no idea what I’m doing wrong. I blame this on my childhood. But whatever it is, I’m not doing it as wrong as my friend Grace, whose oven burst into a fireball as she attempted this technique.
This one horror story should not dissuade you from trying the Cooks Illustrated approach, because at the end of cooking, you are left with a baking sheet full of bacon fat. And since the sheet has corners, it is very easy to pour the fat into a small glass bowl. Then you can cover the bowl and keep it in the fridge for later.
Alternatively, you can use your newly collected bounty right away on some large-curd high-heat scrambled eggs that will be ready in just seconds. Start your toast just after you pour the eggs into the skillet, and your timing for a complete breakfast will be spot on.
Look at that.
Bacon fat isn’t just delicious. Eating it is healthier, helps you become a more ethical omnivore, and it can even make you a better cook. Go bacon!
FUSSYlittleBLOG 
I use a similar method to cook bacon. I start it in a cold oven and set it to 400. I also flip the bacon about halfway through.
Not exactly the same bacon you are talking about, but I think pancetta and its very flavorful fat is the best way to start a stew.
Bacon, the healthy alternative. I love that!. Compared to salted butter yes. But healthy?
And Gary Coleman was MUCH taller than Herve Villachaez. Gotta go; bacon’s almost done.
HealthIER.
I find the most success (although still messy and requiring a splatter screen), getting a cast-iron pan nice and hot, putting the bacon in, then turning the heat down to low and let it cook slowly. I get crisp edges and chewy middles that way.
Yum! Y’know, I really should get some bacon and keep it in the freezer — I can never eat a pound before it goes bad, but it’s so delicious.
I’ve been doing bacon in the oven for a few years. Definitely the easiest and most consistent method I’ve found. Line a jelly roll pan with aluminum foil, lay out your strips, 350 for maybe 20 minutes,flipping once in the middle. Then drain on paper towels and pour off all that sweet, sweet bacon fat into a jar and keep it in the fridge for whatever you can think of.
I grew up in the Midwest where disgusting liberties were taken in food preparation. My mother actually had a pan for microwaving bacon. It is the ONLY way we ate it growing up. One summer at my dad’s place in Arizona I was alone and wanted to cook breakfast. I had seen bacon fried in pans on television so decided to try it myself at the tender age of 17. I’ve never looked back. I did see the CI recipe for cooking bacon in the oven, but it’s so much easier to make bacon followed by eggs in the same pan (although I do like your idea of pouring the grease from the baking sheet and saving it for the next meal). Besides, my brain isn’t ever quite functioning that early on the weekends to remember to try to cook something differently than I have for the past decade and a half.
Note that America’s Test Kitchen doesn’t recommend cooking eggs in bacon grease since it alters the flavor of the eggs. Well duh, that’s the point. They are my go-to kitchen gurus, but it just goes to show that sometimes you have to think for yourself…Chris Kimball can’t be right all of the time.
I do it low and slow in a skillet. It actually takes quite a bit longer than one would expect, but it’s worth it.
A little bit of bacon fat with fresh tomatoes is an excellent topping for pasta.
Also delicious cooked in rendered bacon fat – bone in pork chops.
(Talk about unhealthy.)
I agree that the bacon infusion fad has gotten tiresome, but my Sunday lunch was bacon and a beer, so perhaps I’m not the world’s best culinary critic.