If you remember, I reviewed Cumberland Gap sliced jowl bacon (for a more informed review and description go look at the post on Dave's Cupboard, he has superior meat knowledge in this case) that became available at Price Chopper recently. I found that the formed than sliced jowl had less than perfect cooking properties, but appreciated its great potential as a seasoning bacon. Well, I happened upon the above pictured whole jowls a couple weeks ago and was pretty excited. The price is extremely reasonable at 2.89$ a pound.
Don't get me wrong here, this is not an artisan cured and smoked product. It is very much along the lines of your standard grocery store bacon with a somewhat higher quality smokiness, but the ability to hunk, chunk, or slice at my own whim sells me on the stuff. Another plus is that it is rind on! Remove that piece of skin with a little attached fat and throw it in your bean pot for some great gelatin and flavor.
The other day we were popping our grilling cherry for the season (uh, sorry that sounds horribly obscene, but I will leave it in). I cut a bunch of paper thin slices of the jowl, added it to a bunch of thin cut potatoes and onions, wrapped it all up in some aluminum foil and plopped it on the grill for a while. The jowl bacon kind of melted into everything and added some greasy goodness. I bought three packages and will probably be wedging it into everything short of my morning corn flakes.
C'mon Mr. Dave, I'm sure you could sprinkle some rendered bits over cornflakes.
ReplyDelete