Pantry Raid: Lacquer Bacon Edition

Hey Alton Brown here all alone except for the camera guy in the palatial good eats test kitchens one of the problem one of the problems I'm sure you're having is that as things kind of run out in your home you're like I want a candy bar but all I have is bacon this seems like a problem but it's not let's say that you've been smart enough to store up bacon even in the freezer you dig around and you find some like I did this is 12 ounces which is one package of what was sold to me as uncured bacon let's just talk about that for a second see this package I've removed the brand name because I don't want anybody mad at me but it says uncured natural uncured does that mean that it actually hasn't been cured no that's not actually what it means it just means it hasn't been cured with the additives nitrate or nitrate which are a preservative chemicals this stuff has to be refrigerated I refrigerate bacon anyway but it still has been cured in the way that we think of it meaning it's been packed with a salt like mixture this one including some sea salt we got basically seasonings ah and celery powder sea celery and contains some things that are a lot like nitrates nitrates so basically this is just like any old bacon don't fall for the uncured thing it's just another example of our government coming up with funny ways rewarding things that don't make any damn sense or difference so I have the bacon twelve ounces now what I want to do is I want to make this basically into a candied bacon okay that's that candy bar that we're looking for but it's gonna have pork at its heart so I'm going to have a few different ingredients here they have a quarter cup of Muscovado sugar which is darker than most dark brown sugar I like Muscovado because it's got a little bit more of the the natural molasses flavor a little more acidic a little bit more flavor to the party you've got it use it you'll need about a quarter cup we're just gonna eyeball this we're not gonna measure it this isn't a good eats episode we're not gonna be like that we're also gonna need some some red chili flake all right if all you've got are little packets you've been saving for the the pizza-delivery use them it's fine we're also going to need black pepper freshly ground black pepper the actual amounts if you want to look this up online that's fine you can do so we're just gonna highball it my oven is set to 375 degrees all right 375 give it plenty of time to warm up notice if you would that I have my bacon on a rack they're technically called baking racks or cooling racks there you go for cakes and things to cool on but we use them for anything that we want that to be able to drip away from I've got that inside a half sheet pan aluminum half sheet pan and the only reason I've got a piece of parchment here is because I am lazy and I don't want to have to clean up the mess that would be left in the pan so that is for ease of cleanup I've also got another piece of parchment standing by you will see why momentarily all right so notice I have the bacon all very very very closely squeezed together but not overlapping that so I don't waste a lot of my ingredients down and the pan but I don't want to crowd it or overlap it so the first thing is I'm going to sprinkle on the sugar now we're gonna need about a quarter cup for this whole batch but there are two sides so I don't want to overdo it now the red chili flake I love red chili flake I'm gonna use a lot of this stuff because I want this to be really really spicy and I'll probably use that much on the other side the black pepper I'm adding not so much for heat but just for flavor now what I like to do is just put another sheet of parchment on this and just lightly press down you can skip this but I find it gets slightly better coverage if I do this there and I'll use this again later on for wrapping Christmas presents because when people open the box you'll be like oh we get bacon and it's like some socks and you go I'm losing my mind in quarantine anyway this now will go into the oven for 15 minutes not 14 not 16 15 top or middle in the box will do just fine I'll be back now if we got to move these pieces out this way these pieces in this way and flip everything over yeah now that looks done but it may be only mostly done depending on the actual type of bacon you're using you might want to cook out a little bit more of the moisture now that this is probably going to set up just fine but if it seems to be really floppy and there's a lot of fat still kind of dripping off of there go ahead and put it back in the oven turn the oven off and check it again in five minutes yeah that's exactly what I want to see it's still a little floppy but don't worry as it cools down it's going to turn pretty much like stick handy you wanted a candy bar now you've got candy only with a heart of pork how could you want anything more and it will keep just about forever if it's tightly sealed but it won't last forever of course because you're gonna eat it probably in one seating don't feel bad about yourself for that these are stressful times self-care is important I'm gonna let this sit for a few minutes and then I'll just flip the whole thing over as for all this deliciousness so dogs are four there we go now once this stuff sets up nice and hard it'll be just like this you wanted your candy now you got

Channel: Alton Brown

Views: 633,058

Rating: 4.939559 out of 5

Keywords: Alton Brown, Cooking, Food, Bacon, Recipes, Good Eats, Pantry Raid

Id: 5j5e-y2JCgo

Length: 6min 2sec (362 seconds)

Published: Sat May 23 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/tallgrrl]

Made a take on this tonight. So good!