Ginger Honey Bacon

Ginger Honey Bacon

By Justin Wilson

Weeks ago I purchased myself some curing salt to be prepared for my cured meats bonanza. Ever since taking Garde Manger class in school, I have pretty much become obsessed with the idea of preserving meats by way of smoking and curing. Bacon is one of my most favorite things in the world, standing up right next to Pho. It amazes me what some salt, spices, and a few days of waiting can do to a piece of meat. I finally found some pork belly at a local asian supermarket, which was strange enough in itself. My mind had been racing for a long, long time about what I would do should I finally get my hands on some. I decided to use two of my most favorite ingredients as the main flavors, honey and ginger.

After rubbing a mixture of kosher salt, curing salt, grated ginger, honey, and crushed juniper berries over the raw meat. I let it sit for 4 days, flipping it every other day to make sure the curing mix penetrated evenly. Curing salt is an interesting thing, it is colored pink to avoid accidentally being used as regular salt. Why? Because it not only contains a very fine grain salt, but also sugar, sodium nitrate and sodium nitrite (the last two give the pink hue and stops bacteria from going crazy). Sodium nitrate and nitrite have also been linked to nitrosamines, which cause cancer. However, you’re pretty safe eating these unless you decide to consume a whole lot of it. The general guideline for using curing salt is 1 oz per 25 lbs of meat so there is very little of it in any application that you may find. In fact, you probably eat it a lot more than you think. Unless you’re one of those nasty vegetarians. Ever wonder why ham is pink?

And the final product…

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