So the bacon is out. I'll avoid any attempt at suspense (I mean, there's already been enough anyway, given it's been the best part of three weeks in the making) and flat out say it's just really damn good. I'm sure that the majority of the credit must go to the quality of the meat as it doesn't feel like I've actually done much, except wait. And worry. As I've divulged recently, things that fall outside of the area where I can brush things off with a swift Oh, I Know What I'm Doing tend to cause me concern, some of it almost certainly unnecessarily. I think to watch me in the kitchen I generally exude an air of I Know What I'm Doing, even if that is not always the case, but with my first foray into curing this has been conspicuous by its absence. To the extent that after hanging it up I pretty much ignored it until I took it out of the cellar and transferred it to the fridge. But my overly pessimistic fears were unfounded. The balance between meat and fat through the belly is pretty much perfect as far as I'm concerned. Having tasted some simply fried during the process of the first recipe below I wouldn't want to leave any future bellies curing for longer than this one was, as it was quite salty but not too much as the sweetness from the sugar underpins the saltiness rather nicely. Whilst the meat is firm, it isn't as hard as I was expecting, so much to the extent that I can just about get some unevenly thick rashers from it for breakfast purposes just using a heavy cook's knife. I must admit that when I first sliced into it I stood and admired it for a moment or two, as it does look quite fantastic.
Anyway, my anticipation was such that I wanted to cook things where the bacon was relatively predominant. Whilst it would be perfect to add to other dishes to add flavour, or moisture from the fat, or to bulk up meat content, I felt I needed to see how it would command a dish. For some reason, I've been struck with a bit of a cooking blank recently. Maybe because I've been intentionally forcing myself within the confines of things where the focus is primarily on bacon as an ingredient (not that it usually would otherwise), but on top of that I've had virtually no inspiration, and I've been totally underwhelmed by pretty much everything I've considered. So I suppose it was quite apt that I ended up falling back on what is seemingly the only structured element of my cooking, that being my interpretation of Penne All'Amatriciana which I make on actually quite a regular basis. I've made it so often that it really requires no thinking on my behalf. Before that, though, I went for another Do It In Your Sleep dish, risotto. I've had some dried porcini left over ever since I overbought them for the Zombioli, which I'd always earmarked for a risotto of some kind. It's one thing I think anyone can make, regardless of ability, simply because it can be adapted in virtually any way imaginable and still be amazing. Added to which the beginnings of a good risotto are the sorts of things I always have lying around somewhere, so its reliability as a strapped-for-just-about-anything recipe is invaluable. It's easy to make a good risotto, less so a great one, and this was actually pretty great.
Here's what I did...
40g dried porcini
150g shiitake mushrooms
2 thick slices bacon or pancetta
200g arborio rice
1 glass white wine
1 small onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, diced
a good knob of butter
2 sprigs fresh thyme
4 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
Put the porcini in a bowl and cover with 600ml of boiling water and leave to soak for about 20 minutes. Afterwards remove the mushrooms and very roughly chop.
Heat 2 tbsp of the oil in a heavy based pan and add the onion and garlic. Soften on a low heat for about 10 minutes, until translucent. Meanwhile chop the bacon into pieces roughly the size of a postage stamp and fry in a frying pan until browned and some of the fat has drawn out. Add both the bacon and the fat to the onion and garlic and turn the heat up. Add the rice and stir to coat it with the bacon fat and cook for about a minute. Add the wine and allow the alcohol to cook off, then add three ladlefuls of the porcini liquid. Strip the leaves from the thyme sprigs and add to the pan. Keep stirring constantly, and add more of the porcini liquid two ladlefuls at a time once the rice has absorbed all that was in the pan. Continue this process for about 10 minutes, adding more liquid as it is absorbed. It must never become too dry, or be allowed to stick to the pan.
Slice some of the larger shiitake mushrooms in two or three. Add the remaining oil to the pan used to fry the bacon, and fry the shiitakes until slightly browned and softened. Season with salt and pepper. Add the chopped porcini and the shiitakes to the risotto. Continue to add more liquid until the rice has become soft and pulpy, but still retaining a slight bit of bite in the very centre. Add the butter and stir in to give the risotto a rich and creamy texture (having ridiculed American cup measurements last time round, I suggest it take heed from the 'good knob', a truly flexible measurement if ever there was one; a knob of butter for this purpose is as big or small as you want it to be). Season to taste with pepper, and if needed, sea salt.
Sort of Penne All'Amatriciana...
3 handfuls penne rigate
About 12-15 pomodorino tomatoes
2 thick slices bacon or pancetta
1 tbsp olive oil
1 clove garlic
ground black pepper
torn basil leaves
Fill a large saucepan with salted, boiling water (pasta is best cooked while giving it plenty of space) and drop the pasta in. Heat the oil in a frying pan and fry the bacon until browned and the fat has drawn out. Slice the tomatoes in half lengthways to expose the seeds. Add to the bacon and fry for a few minutes until the juice from the tomatoes has reduced slightly. Finely chop the garlic and add to the pan, along with the black pepper and basil. Check the pasta and drain just before it is al dente. Turn the heat off from under the bacon and tomatoes and pour in the pasta and stir in to allow the sauce to coat.
I previously claimed that this dish would not make for very interesting blogging, and yet now here I am going back on myself. Not least, as Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall points out in The River Cottage Cookbook, recipes "will be extra tasty and extra satisfying if you use your home-cured belly." Still, I do feel slightly disingenuous passing off such an easy thing to cook, but nonetheless I shall. It takes as long to cook as it does to cook dried penne, about 11 minutes or so (although 30 if you're in a Butlin's self-catering chalet with The Bluntest Knife In the World and a shitty electric ring hob that has had all the heat gauge numbers rub off that's near impossible to tell actually how hot it is.)
I have previously only made this with back bacon and thought about how it might turn out using a higher quality substitute, yet in fitting with the whole cooking structure thing I have never actually got round to it, until now. Using a much fattier cut of pork obviously results in more fat being released during the cooking, which in turn I found results in a much better sauce. This was easily the best I've made this recipe, and I can't feasibly put it down to anything other than the fact I was using my own bacon.
Next up (after finishing off this belly, let's not get ahead of ourselves, here) I'm going to try the same curing process only with the peppercorns, juniper and bay flavourings to see how they impart during curing. What is actually a large part of my relief at this working first time is that the conditions I've got for doing so are obviously adequate at the least. Whilst I'll warn myself not to get too carried away, in my mind I'm already thinking and salivating about moving on to more complicated salami style curings.
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