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Cooking Bacon

 
master rocket scientist
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Location: latitude 47 N.W. montana zone 6A
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Hi all;
Having just taken my piggies off to the butcher, I am dreaming of all the tasty products that will come home next week!
Topping the list is BACON!  An all-time favorite!
A few months back I was told of a different method of cooking bacon.
Different method? Throw it in your cast iron skillet, flip it, get a few grease burns, and enjoy!
It turns out there is an alternative I had never even considered.
Place your bacon on a cookie sheet in the oven @ 350F for 20 minutes!  The Oven?  Who would have thought?
Your bacon comes out completely flat, fully cooked, and no grease was splattered!

Turns out that anyone in the food service industry has known about this for years...
When you cook pounds of bacon at a time, using a skillet just won't do the job quickly or painlessly.
I guess cooking Pizzas in an Italian restaurant (at 16) did not teach me all I needed to know about bacon!    Shocking right?

This was brought to my mind this morning by fellow staff member Gerry Parent.
He is a practicing vegetarian so cooking bacon is not on his to-do list.
However, he is a huge fan of my home-smoked cheese.
This morning he asked if I "smoke" my bacon when cooking it?
Well gosh... you cook bacon in a frying pan, Right? Well, I used to except now I know a different way.
So, when my new stash of bacon arrives next week.
I'm thinking some will need to be cooked and extra hickory smoked in my Walker black and white oven!

Hmmm looking forward to it already!   Thanks, Gerry!



 
steward
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I get my smoked bacon at the store.

We buy 10 lbs. at a time.

Not long ago I put the box it comes in in the laundry room.

Later I thought that the bedroom smelled like smoke.  Upon investigation, it turned out to be that empty bacon box.

I like to cook my bacon on the George Foreman Grill.  Actually, that is about all I use it for.
 
thomas rubino
master rocket scientist
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Hi Anne;
My bacon is of course fully smoked already when I get it.
This next time I will toss hickory chunks into the already warmed-up black oven while my presmoked bacon is baking adding another layer of smoky goodness.

After I have smoked cheese pieces, they go in the fridge to cool before vacuum packing them.
Oh My, the smells that waft out when you open the door are heavenly!
Even after the cheese has moved on the smell lingers for a few days!
 
pollinator
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That is a BRILLIANT use of a black oven!  Hot smoke awesomeness

We always used the broiler pan or a wire rack in a cookie sheet to keep the bacon out of the fat so it came out with just the right amount of far left on it and your bacon grease was pretty clean and ready to save for other uses.
 
Rusticator
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John (retired chef) and I (former bakery baker) have been oven cooking our bacon for as long as I can remember, but about 7yrs ago (while still living in the Chicago burbs, in a loft apartment), he started buying raw pork belly, and doing his own curing and smoking. There is truly something magical about home-cured, home-smoked bacon, that just can't be matched. Just playing around with the wood types is some of the most fun, yummy science I can think of!
 
master steward
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Hubby bought a package of thick-sliced bacon that a local shop had on special. I wasn't looking forward to the mess it would generate cooking a bit at a time. So I looked around and found these instructions:

Arrange the bacon strips on a rack on a baking sheet. It's okay to overlap slices slightly because the bacon will shrink as it bakes. Place the pan in the cold oven.
Heat the oven to 425 degrees F (220 degrees C). Cook the bacon, as the oven comes up to temperature, for 14 minutes, or until it's cooked to your liking. No need to flip the bacon over during cooking.
Transfer cooked bacon to paper towel-lined plates. Let it cool for 5 minutes for the bacon to crisp.


If I had been using the usual thin bacon, this might have worked. However, with the thicker stuff, in the future, I would a) not overlap it, b) flip it once after the first 14 minutes and c) expect to watch it for the next 4-8 minutes until it looks done.  

And the recipe missed one important instruction - turn the stove fan on before opening the oven. I only managed to trigger the smoke detector once, but even that was annoying to my ears.

It tastes dang fine!
 
Steward of piddlers
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Location: Upstate NY, Zone 5, 43 inch Avg. Rainfall
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When I worked in a big kitchen for a hospital, we would make trays upon trays of bacon. Ovens make it easy to reproduce bacon related results time after time compared to fiddling with them in a pan.

At home, I only cook for two and I don't generally fire up my oven unless I'm doing something special. I like to cook my thick bacon in a cast iron pan where I can keep an eyes on it. I like my bacon on the chewier side while my wife likes it practically burnt.

I've heard you can utilize an air fryer for bacon, but I have not tried. Has anyone here?

 
gardener
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I buy bacon in 5 lb packages and cook 1 lb at a time, no matter how much I'm using right now. I pan fry it.

I had forgotten that when I worked in food service it was oven cooked. I'll have to try that! It might be easier than portioning up the bacon/freezing the unused raw stuff and then frying it up one batch at a time. A lb of bacon lasts us about a month or more.
 
master steward
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Hi Tim, one of my few uses for a microwave is for cooking bacon. It is fast and effective.
 
Anne Miller
steward
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Above I said that I cook my bacon on a George Foreman Grill.

An update:  I retire old George and got a little Yummy Bella Air Fryer.

Bella now cooks bacon for me.
 
pioneer
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When sliced very thin and fried until slightly crispy (not burned), SPAM tastes quite a bit like bacon. Old prepper tip to save some freezer space.
 
master pollinator
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Location: Milwaukie Oregon, USA zone 8b
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Having had bacon both from the stove and from the oven I much prefer the stove.  Oven bacon I find to be kind of limp.  I mean it still tastes good, but stovetop bacon is crackly and tastier and curly!  Oven bacon has become more common in the last 15 years or so, probably because its slightly less painful/dangerous.
 
I agree. Here's the link: http://stoves2.com
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