Smyes Lightly Peppered Bacon Recipes

CANDIED PEPPERED BACON

Steps:

• Preheat the oven to 350° F.
• Line baking pans with parchment paper.
• Place bacon strips on the lined baking sheets.
• In a small bowl mix the sugar, pepper and chili flakes.
• Spread the sugar mixture over the bacon as evenly as possible.
• Put baking sheets in oven and bake for about 10 minutes.
• After 10 minutes, take spoon and spread the liquid that has formed at the bottom of the pan over the bacon.
• Let bake for another 20 minutes.
• Flip bacon strips to ensure that they cook evenly on both sides.
• Bake until bacon is nice and crispy. This should take about another 15-20 minutes.
• Take bacon out of pan and place on cooling rack to let cool.
• Serve and enjoy!

SMYE'S LIGHTLY PEPPERED BACON

Steps:

• Rinse pork belly and pat dry. Mix brown sugar, salt, paprika, red pepper flakes, black pepper, curing salt, and cumin seeds together. Add maple syrup. Spread the cure mixture evenly over pork belly.
• Vacuum-seal the pork belly or place it into a resealable plastic bag, squeezing out as much air as possible. Refrigerate for 7 to 10 days.
• Remove pork belly from bag and rinse thoroughly. Pat dry and refrigerate while preheating your smoker to 220 degrees F (105 degrees C) according to manufacturers' instructions.
• Place pork belly, fat-side down, onto the wire rack. Place the rack into the smoker. Add 1 fist-sized chunk of applewood and 1 chunk of hickory wood to the smoke pan according to manufacturer's directions. Smoke for 1 1/2 hours; add 2 more chunks of applewood. Continue smoking until pork belly reaches an internal temperature of about 150 degrees F (66 degrees C), about 1 1/2 hours more.
• Remove pork belly from smoker and slice as desired. Store in the refrigerator for roughly 30 days. You can also portion out the finished bacon and freeze whatever you don't plan to consume right away, as you would any other meat product. To use, simply thaw in the refrigerator and you're good to go with little loss of texture.

PEPPERED BACON AND CHEESE SCONES

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 400°. In a large bowl, whisk the first 5 ingredients. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in cheese, bacon and shallot., In a small bowl, whisk egg and buttermilk until blended; reserve 1 tablespoon mixture for brushing scones. Stir remaining mixture into crumb mixture just until moistened., Turn onto a lightly floured surface; knead gently 10 times. Pat dough into an 8-in. circle. Cut into 8 wedges. Place wedges on a greased baking sheet. Brush with reserved buttermilk mixture., Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Serve warm.

OVEN BAKED PEPPER BACON

Steps:

• Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Arrange bacon slices in 2 jelly roll or shallow roasting pans, overlapping the lean edge of each slice with the fat edge of the next. Evenly sprinkle pepper over bacon slices. Place pans on 2 oven racks and bake 25 minutes, switching pans between upper and lower racks halfway through the baking, or until bacon is golden brown and crisp. Transfer bacon to paper towels to drain; keep warm.