Who doesn’t like bacon and egg for breakfast? Or perhaps when the weather is cool you fancy a bacon hotpot!

Bacon has always been a family favourite here, but to find British style bacon means a 40 minute round trip making it expensive to buy!

Living in the campo has its drawbacks in Spain, and there are many ex-pats that decide country life if the choice for them.

It’s all well and good enjoying the surrounding nature, but sometimes you fancy a taste of home. Living in a Spanish village doesn’t always accommodate the types of food we would like. Finding bacon is one drawback!

So after doing some research and a friend letting you try you some ‘bacon cure’ that was no longer available by post, I decided to make my own ‘cure’ and ‘baconise’ some pork.

What I did!

It took a couple attempts before I got it right. The first attempt it didn’t stay pink. The second attempt was WAY TOO salty! They went straight into the bin.

Eventually I found the perfect method and my ‘baconising’ sessions are now a regular weekly event.

To keep it pink you need to use Saltpetre which is delivered to Spain and ordered over the internet. This is the one I bought: Saltpetre

As I mentioned earlier, I did have a couple of failures, but in the end, I found a really simple way to cure the pork and it uses just 3 ingredients. Salt, brown sugar and and saltpetre. All you need to get it right is to use the correct quantities per 1kg of pork, and wait for around 5 days.

I have tried a number of cuts of pork including belly pork, loin and cabeza. All have worked well. Some are better for slicing and frying, some for roasting and some chopped into cubes and used in a casserole.

To begin, weigh your pork. If using a large piece, for example loin, slice it open so it is like a book. Belly pork doesn’t need to cutting, just leave that as is. You want your meat to be about 1.5″ thick, it seems one day per half inch of meat plus a couple more is the way to go.

Ingredients …

For each kilo of meat, you need 30g free flowing salt, half to one teaspoon of saltpetre, and about 10g to 12g of brown sugar.

I have been using muscovado. Pop everything into a bowl and rub it all together until well mixed. Now you simply rub this into both sides of your meat and place your meat into a zip-lock freezer bag, and seal it. Put the bag in the fridge and leave it for 5 days, turning it once every day so all the flavours soak through the meat. Waiting the 5 days is the hardest part to be perfectly honest!

Finally …

And basically that is it! Once your 5 days are up (I have even left it for 6 or 7 days due to time restraints), remove it from the bag, rinse it off under cold running water, dry it and let it sit for another day uncovered in the fridge. You can then chop it up, slice it or leave it whole to roast off. I freeze quite a bit of mine so I always have bacon to hand!

Top tip: If you are slicing it, either by hand or using a machine, put it in the freezer for a couple of hours to help it slice easier.

Fancy Bacon Hopot?

A one pot meal doesn’t get any easier than this … Bacon Hotpot!