Cafeoutdoors.com: Pea Meal Bacon

I'm interested in brining meats and I've been doing some reading. Turns out, what I've always known as "Canadian Bacon" is smoked, and that's an American thing. In Canada "Pea Meal Bacon" is much more authentic and popular - it's made from the same kind of pork loin, brined in the same solution, but it's not smoked and it's rolled in corn meal. Originally this bacon was coated with meal ground from dried peas instead of corn, hence the name.

Here's what I did with a 2 lb. boneless pork loin, more or less following a recipe:

Made up a brine of:

2 quarts of water
3 tablespoons Kosher salt (3% salt solution)
1/2 cup sugar
5 cloves garlic mashed with a spoon (I actually used 2 1/2 teaspoons of minced roasted garlic from a jar)
2 bay leaves
7 or 8 sprigs of sage (optional - I didn't add sage this time)
7 or 8 sprigs of thyme (added it, we have thyme growing outdoors)
4 or 5 sprigs of rosemary (yep, we have rosemary growing in a pot)
1 lemon halved (I used lemon juice from a bottle instead)

Heat the brine mixture to dissolve the salt and sugar and get the other flavors into solution, then cool it in the refrigerator overnight. The meat should be at refrigerator temperature also. When the brine is cool, put the meat and brine in a closed container or plastic bag and weight it down to make sure the meat stays completely covered with brine. Keep the meat in the brine, in the refrigerator, for a week.

OR - what I actually did was put the pork loin and brine in a Foodsaver vacuum marinating container, weight it down so the meat stays covered, and used the Foodsaver to remove air. Keep the pork loin and brine in the vacuum container in the refrigerator for two days.

Either way, when the brining time is up, remove the meat and rinse it in cold water, pat it dry, roll it in corn meal, and set it in the refrigerator, uncovered, for four hours. This pulls excess salt out of the meat (though this brine isn't very salty to begin with), and forms a dry glaze which holds the corn meal on. To use the bacon (which isn't a bit like fatty American bacon), cut off thin 1/4" thick slices and fry or grill them for sandwiches or breakfast.

My wife and I are amazed at how GOOD this is - it's about ten times better than the same pork loin would have been, if not brined. This is so tender it melts in your mouth and the flavor is slap-yo-mama good!

Post Extras