The Bacon in Canadian version
If I say the word “Bacon” everyone, myself included, think as first thing to that delicious meat that we use fried on the plate before putting it between the burger and the bun, along with cheddar or to accompany delicious eggs benedict in our american style breakfast.
This however is not the only existing version. Behind the classic luscious bacon as we all know, there is one much less famous version, typical of Canada. This is a much more lean and refined version, produced starting from pork loin, instead of from the flank, but no less good.
If you have tried somtimes to realize the classic american bacon at home, you probably will recognize the procedure that is virtually identical: we put the meat in brine for a few days then smoke it at low temperature. In practice it changes only the recipe of the brine, characterized by a rich dose of maple syrup and the use of a seasoning belonging to a style typical of Canada, called Montreal, based on few and simple ingredients but very effective, similar for some verses to rub Texans SPOG.
In the specific case of this recipe, I used a Raising the Steak from Dizzi Pig, quite expensive but very high quality. For smoking process I decided to use the very canadian Maple wood. The problem with this essence is the availability in chips and even less in chunks. So I had to fall back to the pellets BBQr’s Delights, that in the case of coal devices must be used with the appropriate cast iron smoke box. An important note is relative to temperature: about Canadian Bacon exist on the net two current of thought, one that want it to be smoked at 95°C, as I do for the classic bacon and one that think that cooking it at 150°C is faster and does not change in any way the result. I tried them both and I have to confirm the absolute truth of the latter approach. May It be the first step of a mine conversion to Hot & Fast? Bah…
For cooking we’re going to use the Weber Summit Charcoal that we presented here. We will use it in Low & Slow preset but this time without any water pan and opening up to the upper wing to earn the degrees missing to the goal of 150. Equally we will use coal as fuel and the burner of the ignition system.
The Canadian Bacon
Flavored with Thyme and Maple SyrupIngredients (for 12 people):
1/2 Pork Loin
1,5 Lt Water
150 gr. Sea Salt
50 gr. Seasoning Montreal
100 gr. Brown Sugar
90 ml. Maple Syrup
1,5 gr./Kg Gold Cure
2 spoons of Thyme
2 cloves of smashed Garlic
5 Sage leafs
Realization:
- As first we proceed to trim the loin trying to eliminate the amount of exceeding fat and any outer membranes.
- The next step is the creation of the brine by combining the ingredients in a blender. Then we poure into a double freezing bag containing the loin taking care to press the outer side with hands in order to make all the air out before sealing. Then store it in the fridge for 72 hours.
- At the end of this period we take out the loin from the brine and rinse it well in a bowl with fresh water, leaving it soak for at least half an hour. Then dab with kitchen paper and store it in the fridge to dry for the further 24 hours.
- Turn on your cooking device, stabilizing it at 150°C. In our case we placed the deflector without water pan on the Summit Charcoal, after flaming up the coal with the dedicated burner and positioned the cast iron smoke box with maple pellet in between the fuel, placing the flap on Low & Slow preset. Then place the loin in indirect cooking.
- As soon as reached internal 70°C, remove loin from cooking and let it cool before slicing and serving.
You’ll love the he result. It reminds me in many ways the smoked ham, only more greedy. You should definitely try a sandwich with it, matched with some yellow mustard.
Will you take a trip to Canada or will you bring Canada to take a trip here?