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DIY Allergy-Friendly Ingredients – Do-It-Yourself versions of processed foods normally bought at a grocery store, such as bacon, margarine, or spice mixes, but for which a commercial version can no longer be safely purchased due to food allergies. Most people with top 8 allergies won’t have to go to this extent, but some of you may want to try or find it useful. Some of these recipes will take days or longer to complete. These recipes will not contain dairy, eggs, gluten, wheat or hazelnuts. If we use a top 8 allergen, we will use a tag warning of its use.
This one’s pretty simple, but often the rubs and seasonings that you can buy pre-mixed at the grocery store have something I’m not supposed to have, whether it’s citric acid for flavor, or a filler, or an anti-flow agent that happens to be derived from corn, wheat or milk. I can’t tell you how ticked off I was to find that one of my favorite taco seasonings had lactose in it. I’ve given this a try on some boneless pork ribs and I bet it’d be great on chicken, but I can’t find out since I’m allergic to chicken. I really liked the bark (the crispy browned bits) the rub gave to the pork. I mixed just enough as listed in the ingredients below to cover two pieces of pork about six to eight inches long and about five inches wide, because I live in an apartment and they won’t let me put a grill on my second floor balcony. If you grill a lot, you might want to double or triple the recipe so that you can have it on hand. This is also pretty great on roasts and stuff you broil in the oven since we’re getting pretty close to only indoor cooking time of year. The recipe below makes about a third of a cup or so.
Dry Rub for Barbecue
2 Tablespoon of brown sugar
1 Tablespoon of kosher salt
1/2 Tablespoon of ground cumin
1/2 Tablespoon of paprika
1/2 Tablespoon of garlic powder
1/2 Tablespoon of onion powder
1/2 Tablespoon of chili powder
1/2 teaspoon of black pepper
1/2 teaspoon of white pepper
1/2 teaspoon of cayenne
Put all ingredients in a bowl and mix well with a fork or a whisk until everything is completely blended. Wow, that was easy wasn’t it? Put it in an air-tight container to store.
To use it, simply coat your cut of meat with it and put it on the grill or roast or broil it in the oven. If you’d like to use it with vegetables, I’d coat the veggies in a safe oil first, and then coat them in the rub.
You may remember that we posted a Stout Braised Corned Beef and Cabbage recipe way back in the depths of time. Well, that was in the time before my wheat and corn allergies were diagnosed. At the time, since Mary Kate had issues with gluten, and a lot of our readers are gluten-free, I had put in the modifications needed to make it gluten-free. But once my corn allergy hit, I couldn’t find a safe brand of corned beef that I could buy, because of the dextrose, sodium erythorbate, and other corn ingredients that tend to show up in commercial versions. A while ago, I came across a beef brisket while shopping, and it occurred to me that maybe I could research how to make corned beef, just like I had for learning to cure bacon. Worst case scenario, I’d cook it as brisket if it didn’t work. So I bought it, but I didn’t have time to deal, so I threw it in the freezer. During my most recent “vacation” otherwise known as “food prep week”, I finally decided that it was time. So I looked at recipes from Alton Brown on the Food Network and the Wellness Mama, and modified and added things based on my other research.
I prepared the brine, then I brined the brisket for 10 days, and cooked it according to my original recipe, but using the gluten free tweaks, and without cabbage, because I forgot to buy any. And it was corned beef, and it was good. Even my husband (no food allergies) said it was good. So I’m sharing.
Just a note, this takes a long time. And it’s probably best to do the brine the day before you’re actually going to start marinating, because it has to be completely chilled. Also, be aware that it’s not the right color because we’re not adding curing salt or saltpeter, but it still tastes right.
Cure your own Corned Beef after curing and cookingCure your own Corned Beef after cooking and slicing
Cure your own Corned Beef
2 quarts of water
1 cup of kosher salt
1/2 cup of brown sugar
1 cinnamon stick, broken into pieces (I used a zip top bag and a rolling pin and smacked it a couple of times)
1/2 Tablespoon of brown mustard seeds
1/2 Tablespoon of yellow mustard seeds
1 Tablespoon of whole black peppercorns
8 whole cloves
8 whole allspice berries
2 bay leaves, broken into bits
1/2 teaspoon of ground ginger or 1/2 Tablespoon of crystallized ginger (whichever you have on hand)
2 pounds of ice
1 cup of fresh celery puree (Take 5-7 stalks of celery and put them through a food processor or blender until they are pureed)
1/4 cup of juice from sauerkraut made from red cabbage (optional – just an attempt to get the correct color since I’m not using curing salt)
1 – 2 1/2 gallon zip top plastic bag (They have these now! They are brilliant for marinating and knitting projects!)
1 – 4 to 5 pound beef brisket
In a large stockpot, add the water, salt, sugar, cinnamon, both kinds of mustard seeds, black peppercorns, cloves, allspice berries, bay leaves, and ginger, and mix to combine. Bring to a boil over high heat until salt and the sugar have dissolved completely. Remove the stockpot from the heat, and add the ice. Stir the mixture until the ice has melted. Put the brine in the fridge until it has completely chilled. And I mean it, completely chilled, so that could take several hours or it might even be the next day.
Once the brine is completely chilled, mix in the celery puree and the sauerkraut juice. Place the brisket in the 2 1/2 gallon zip top plastic bag and add the brine mixture to the bag. Push as much of the air out of the bag as you can and seal it. Place the zip top bag in a container that allows it to lay flat and put it in the fridge for 10 days. You want to check it daily to make sure that the brisket is completely submerged and to flip the bag to stir the brine. After 10 days, remove the brisket from the brine and rinse it off using cold water. Discard your brine, it can’t be used again. Now you have corned beef brisket to cook as described in our original Stout Braised Corned Beef and Cabbage recipe, or to cook it how you normally cook corned beef.
Despite being diagnosed with a likely soy allergy and confirming it with a food challenge, I also challenged gluten-free tamari separately and decided I could handle it. But paying a little more attention to the fact that I felt lousy the day after Denise and I would have sushi, and also when I’d make stir-fry, I started experimenting with making my own soy sauce substitute. I did try coconut aminos. I didn’t like them. Your mileage may vary, but coconut aminos can also be a bit on the pricey side. Regardless of what you find that works for you, I think that soy sauce is a handy flavor to have in your arsenal for so many uses.
I looked at and tried a variety of recipes online, but none were quite exactly what I wanted, taste-wise. This recipe is my version — I’d suggest trying it in this size (makes a little less than a cup) and then seeing what you might want more or less of in your own final version. Then, if you find you use it regularly, double it. So far, it seems to last safely about a month in the fridge. None of mine has made it past that.
This sauce works best, in my opinion, in cooked or mixed recipes, so stir-fry, teriyaki, marinades of all sorts (like jerky), rather than as a dipping sauce for sushi. Although, hey, it works there, too, but it shows its differences a little more.
2 Tablespoons balsamic vinegar (be sure this is free of “caramel coloring”)
2 teaspoons rice vinegar (free of sweeteners)
3 teaspoons molasses
1 teaspoon whole peppercorns (lightly smash one or two if you really like pepper flavor)
1 teaspoon chopped garlic or one large clove, smashed
1 large chunk of ginger — approximately 1 inch square, but chopped into 4 or so pieces
1 pinch of onion powder
1 teaspoon (or so) of salt
In a saucepan, mix all the ingredients except the salt. A fork or whisk seems to work best to incorporate the onion powder and fully blend the molasses.
Bring to a boil, then turn down to a high simmer (it should still be bubbling briskly) and cook, stirring occasionally, for 15-20 minutes, until reduced by 1/3 in volume.
Remove from heat, whisk in salt. Allow the mixture to cool, then strain and bottle. Store in the fridge.
*I would not highly recommend veggie stock for this, although if you really roasted the veg good and brown, it might be okay. Mushroom broth or stock has a richer flavor in the right direction for a soy sauce replacer, though, so if you want to make this vegan or vegetarian, and you’re not allergic to mushrooms, check out that option. There is at least one boxed brand on the market, or Vegetarian Times has a recipe.
If you tweak this to your tastes, please let us know! Post your recipe or a link below in the comments.
Hot Dog with Ketchup, Mustard, Relish, and Red Cabbage Sauerkraut, and a bad attempt food styling using the sauerkraut juice – Photo by J. Andrews.
When I was diagnosed with the dairy allergy, I could still have Pearl and Boars Head hot dogs. And then came the corn allergy, and wiped out both of those choices too. So I was left with trying to make my own. The thing is you really need a KitchenAid Mixer with the Food Grinder attachment and the Sausage Stuffer accessory or a sausage stuffing machine (they have those, seriously, who knew?) to make this. Or you can just make them into patties and fry them. We did that with a bit of the leftover filling and it tasted hot dog-like.
You can get a beef collagen casing from LEM Products, which is what I did (I’m not saying it’s not corn contaminated, it probably is, but I seemed to tolerate them okay, and I only plan to do this once in a great while) or you can get someDeWied Natural Sheep Casings.
By the way, we have no affiliation with Amazon, the above links are just so that you can see the product and look at the information.
I didn’t grind my own meat but you could. I decided to cheat and get some ground beef because this was going to be a big enough process all on its own without getting all Denise crazy. You may also want to use a food processor, as discussed below to get a better texture in the filling. This recipe does take two days, so please read the whole thing.
Also before anyone asks, the hot dog bun pictured is not gluten-free or otherwise safe. I don’t have a safe hot dog bun yet, but I thought the pictures would look stupid if it was just a hot dog on a plate with condiments. Don’t worry, we fed it to my husband who has no food allergies.
Homemade Hot Dogs:
Again, this recipe does take two days, so please read the whole thing.
2 1/2 pounds of ground beef (don’t get any leaner than 80% or you’ll have really dry icky hot dogs)
1 Tablespoon and 1 teaspoon of kosher salt
1 cup of ice water
1 Tablespoon of ground mustard
1 Tablespoon of paprika
1 teaspoon of ground coriander
1/4 teaspoon of ground black pepper
1 1/2 teaspoons of garlic powder
2 Tablespoons of cane sugar syrup (You will need to make it ahead of time – there are two good recipes and I’ve used both before. The one from thekitchn.com makes about a quart, and the one from justapinch.com makes about two cups.)
hot dog casings (see notes above for your choices)
On the first day, take the ground beef, the kosher salt and the ice water and put it in a bowl. Knead the ingredients together with your hands until everything is well incorporated. Cover it with plastic wrap and let it sit in the fridge overnight.
Ground Beef Mixture
On the second day when you’re ready to start stuffing, place the mustard, paprika, coriander, black pepper and garlic power in a small bowl and mix well.
Spices before mixing
Take the ground beef out of the fridge and pour the spice mixture and the cane sugar syrup over the ground meat. Knead the spices and cane sugar syrup into the meat until everything is well incorporated.
Knead spices and cane sugar syrup into ground beef mixture
If you do not have a food processor, place the ground beef mixture into your KitchenAid mixer bowl, use the flat beater attachment and turn the mixer to high and beat for several several minutes. Just understand that the texture may be a bit more rustic than if you used a food processor. If you do have a food processor, in batches, process the ground beef mixture with the regular chopping blade and process into a fine paste.
Ground beef mixture in mixer
When you have finished processing the ground beef mixture either in the food processor or the mixture, spread a piece of parchment paper, or cling wrap out on a cookie sheet. I like to lay a sheet of parchment paper down first, just for ease of cleaning and it makes it easier to remove the paste later to put in the food grinder to stuff the casings. Spread the paste out on the cookie sheet so that it is a even layer across the cookie sheet. Place it in the freezer for 30 minutes.
Ground beef mixture spread out on cookie sheet
While you are waiting for the ground beef mixture to chill, set up your KitchenAid Mixer with the Food Grinder attachment and the Sausage Stuffer accessory. Depending on the size your casing you’ll need to choose the larger or smaller nozzle. I needed to use the smaller nozzle with the casing I chose, and I used very little of it. I probably have enough casings left to do 5 or 6 more batches. Slide the casing on the nozzle.
KitchenAid mixer set up with Food Grinder, Sausage Stuffer and with casing on nozzle
When the ground beef mixture has chillled, take it out, and place small-ish meat ball sized blobs of ground beef mixture in the food grinder. Slide a bit of the casing forward and tie the end closed before you start the mixer. Put the mixer on speed 4, and as meat comes out, hold the casing on the nozzle so that more casing does not slide out until the casing has been filled by the meat coming out. It’s easier said that done, and I found that it was helpful to have my husband assist me at this point, as I needed the two extra hands. Make sure you shut off the mixer just before the last bit of casing is filled as you’re going to want to have room to tie it off. Add more casing if you have more ground beef mixture and repeat this process to fill the casing. I will say that is easier if you have one person run the Food Grinder and one person deal with the casing.
Holding casing while mixture fills it
Once you have filled the casing, you are going to want to portion off your hotdogs by twisting the casing. Be careful, I broke one strand open trying to portion them off.
Twisting filled casing to portion hotdogsHot dogs after portioning
Preheat your oven to 225ºF and place your hotdogs on a rack on another sheet pan.
Hotdogs before cooking in oven
Place the hot dogs in the oven and cook until their internal temperature is 150ºF. This could take 40 minutes to an hour. Check them with a meat thermometer occasionally.
Hotdogs after coming out of the oven
Transfer them to a bowl of ice water, and when cool you can store them in the fridge or freezer to use later.
Cooked hotdogs cooling in ice water bath
We saved out a couple from the ice water bath, and fried them up immediately. After all, all that hard work had to be rewarded right?
Homemade Hotdogs fried in a skillet
We froze the remainder and took them to a cook out and grilled them.
Hot Dogs on the Grill – Photo by J. Andrews
Hot dog with ketchup, relish and mustard – Photo by J. Andrews
If I was going to a cookout B.F.A. (Before Food Allergies), one of the things I’d pick up is a bag of marshmallows to toast. With the corn allergy, that’s pretty much not an option these days. I’ve been pinning recipes on how to deal with this for about a year, but I hadn’t gotten around to it yet because there were other things that were much more high priority. Plus it was going to be a significant effort because I’d have to make the cane sugar syrup to replace corn syrup and the powdered sugar (stuff at the store generally has corn starch in it) from scratch and that seems like a lot of steps in advance for so little a thing. But I’m going to a cookout in a week, and it seems like it’s finally time. Normally I’d list out the ingredients in the order that you’re going to use them, but since you’re going to have to make some ingredients ahead of time, I’ve listed those first.
Our friend Fred M. makes beautiful, ethereal, fluffy, light marshmallows, but I wanted these to stand up to getting stuck on a stick for toasting at the cookout so I upped the gelatin amount a bit in the recipes I found and tweaked. These marshmallows are a bit sturdy, but if you want them to be lighter with a little less structure, knock back the amount of gelatin by a tablespoon.
Marshmallows:
Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup of cane sugar syrup (You will need to make it ahead of time – there are two good recipes and I’ve used both before. The one from thekitchn.com makes about a quart, and the one from justapinch.com makes about two cups.)
1 1/2 cups of powdered sugar (You will need to make it ahead of time – here’s a recipe from glutenfreegigi.com on how to do it. I used tapioca starch.)
2 teaspoons of vanilla extract or another extract might be fun, such as cinnamon (Here’s a bunch of recipes for vanilla extract, make sure to use safe alcohol if corn or wheat are an issue for you. I used Luksusowa Vodka because it’s made only from potatoes, where some vodkas may also use grain or corn. Also you can make cinnamon extract by using whole cinnamon sticks instead of vanilla beans. It’s totally killer in coffee.)
4 Tablespoons of unflavored gelatin powder (Knox or Great Lakes are generally regarded as being okay if you’re not super sensitive to corn, again no affiliation with Amazon, just linking for reference)
1 1/4 cups of cold water, divided
1 1/2 cups of cane sugar (make sure you use a safe-for-you brand)
1/8 teaspoon of salt
1/2 cup tapioca starch (You could also use potato or arrowroot starch, whatever’s safe for you)
safe-for-you-oil for greasing the pan or you can use the oil in an oil mister as well
Kitchen Stuff you will need:
Stand mixer with the whisk beater attached
candy thermometer that will clip on the side a saucepan
3 or 4 quart saucepan
9 x 13 baking pan or another flat container to spread out your marshmallows
a pizza cutter or a sharp knife
the normal assortment of bowls, measuring cups, spatulas, forks or whisks and so on
Grease or spray your baking pan with the oil. Use a paper towel to wipe the pan and make sure that every surface is coated in a thin layer of oil. Put the baking pan and a spatula next to your stand mixer, which should already have the whisk beater on it and your splatter guard ready to go.
Mix a 1/2 cup of cold water in a measuring cup along with the vanilla. Put the gelatin into the bowl of the stand mixer, and pour the water and vanilla mixture over it while whisking it with a fork or a small whisk. Mix until there are no lumps. Put the bowl back into your stand mixer and attach it.
Gelatin, water, and vanilla extract well mixed
Place your saucepan on the burner and clip your candy thermometer to the side of the saucepan. Add the rest of the water (3/4 of a cup), and add the cane sugar, cane sugar syrup and salt. Don’t stir it up.
water, sugar, cane sugar, syrup and salt with candy thermometer
Place the saucepan over high head and bring it to a rapid boil. Boil until the sugar mixture measures some where between 245ºF and 250ºF. Don’t let it go any higher than 250ºF. Take the saucepan off the burner and remove the candy thermometer.
Sugar mixture at a boil
Turn on the stand mixer to medium and CAREFULLY pour the sugar mixture down the side of the stand mixer bowl. There will be some bubbling, so go slowly. Also it will freaking burn and hurt if you spill it on yourself, so please don’t.
When all the sugar mixture is in the mixing bowl and is mixed to together, make sure your splatter guard is down and increase the mixing speed to high. Continue to mix on high for 10 minutes. Make sure you do the full 10 minutes.
Whipping marshmallow mixture
Once the ten minutes is up, do not dally, get the marshmallow mixture into the baking pan as fast as you can as it will start to cool really fast, and you want to be able to spread it out in the pan. Use a spatula to scrap out the bowl, but it’s really think and sticky, so you won’t get every bit out. Once it’s in the pan, spray or coat your hands with your oil and spread out the marshmallow evenly.
Marshmallows spread evenly in baking pan
Let the marshmallows sit uncovered and at room temperature for 6 or more hours. Don’t let it go any longer than 24 hours though. Once they have cooled, mix your powdered sugar and tapioca starch in a bowl.
Powder sugar and tapioca starch mixture
Take a large cutting board or cookie sheet and sprinkle some of the powdered sugar mix on it. Then sprinkle the top of the marshmallow in the pan with the mixture and smooth it out over the surface. Flip the pan over onto your cutting board. Once you’ve got them out of the pan, sprinkle more of the mixture over the top of the marshmallow layer that was previously on the bottom of the pan.
Marshmallows powered before cutting
Cut your marshmallows using a sharp knife or a pizza cutter into small squares.
Marshmallow pieces cut by pizza cutter
Put each square in the bowl with the powdered sugar and tapioca and toss it until coated thoroughly. (If you have extra marshmallow coating afterwards, put it in a jar and use it the next time.)
Marshmallow being tossed in marshmallow coating
Store them in an airtight container at room temperature. They’ll last for a couple weeks if you don’t eat them right away. Take them to your cookout and toast them. If you can’t wait you can use your stove burner and a bamboo skewer 🙂
Two of three ingredients needed to cure salt pork – because uncooked salt pork isn’t that attractive
Since the corn allergy apocalypse, I’ve been making my own baked beans and pressure canning them so they will be relatively free of corn ingredients. Except I’ve been cheating a bit *hangs head in shame* — I’ve been using salt pork from the grocery store which has dextrose and sodium erythorbate, which are corn ingredients. I figured it was only a little bit in each jar (dumb, dumb, please don’t follow my example). But after learning how to cure bacon, I thought, hey, salt pork can’t be that hard right? And then I did some Google-fu and found out that, in fact, making some salt pork would be easier than making the bacon. So I had to do it, because the cleaner I eat, the less full my allergy bucket is, and the better off I am when I have a bigger exposure to something, and the healthier I feel.
Salt Pork
1 pound boneless pork belly cut into half inch thick slices, between 1-2 inches long (I removed the skin, but it’s up to you)
1/2 cup kosher or non-iodized salt (the stuff they use to iodize the salt is dextrose, a.k.a. corn, get stuff with no other ingredients but salt.)
2 Tablespoons cane sugar
Mix the salt and the sugar in a bowl.
Pork belly sliced into half inch thick pieces
Use some of the salt and sugar mixture to rub or dredge the pork belly slices.
Pork belly slices dredged in salt and sugar mixture
In a glass, ceramic, or stainless steel container (I used Pyrex), spread a layer of the salt and sugar mixture. Place a layer of the sugar and salt coated pork belly sliced on top of the layer of the salt and sugar mixture.
Dredged pork belly slices on salt and sugar mixture layer
Sprinkle more of the salt and sugar mixture on top and add another layer of pork belly slices. Continue alternating the pork and salt and sugar mixture until you don’t have any pork belly slices left. Sprinkle the remaining salt and sugar mixture over the top of the pork belly slices.
Completed layers of pork belly slices and salt and sugar mixture
Cover the container with a lid or some plastic wrap and refrigerate it. The pork belly slices will be cured and ready to use in 2-3 days.
Pork belly slices after curing for 2 days in fridge
Rinse the salt and sugar mixture off of the salt pork slices. Pat them dry with a paper towel.
Salt pork rinsed and patted dry on paper towels
They are now ready to use in your beans, chowders (non-dairy of course) or stews, or you can store them in a resealable plastic bag in your freezer.
Salt pork in a resealable plastic bag ready to go into the freezer
Bacon. It’s bacon, how do you live without bacon? Unfortunately, commercial bacon has dextrose, sodium erythorbate, ascorbates, and other corn ingredients. At the beginning of my corn-free life, I would cheat a bit, but then I would get a blister on my foot a couple days later, and I eventually decided that it had to go. So no bacon. For months and months. And then I started Googling how to make bacon, and looking for pins on Pinterest. It didn’t look that hard. And compared to fermenting (which I very much enjoy, so this is not a slam), it seemed much less evil scientist-bubbling concoctions, and more of a dry rub marinade in the fridge for several days longer than you would normally. What was the worst that could happen? I mean, besides making myself sick, and that was going to happen if I ate commercial bacon anyway. But I still didn’t do it because I was going to have to make a special effort to get some pork belly, and it’s not like I don’t have enough other stuff to do. But one day, Mary Kate and I were dubbing around at the Saigon Market in Nashua and we saw some pork belly all packaged up and ready to bring home. So I bought it, and I made some bacon. It was good, but I thought the recipe needed some tweaking. So I called McKinnons in Salem and ordered five pounds of pork belly. And I then played around some more.
Now that I’m done experimenting, I’ve got two versions to share with you, one that’s a more basic cure, and one that’s a bit more savory. I like them both, but I prefer the basic cure, as I tend to be a traditionalist about my bacon.
In all likelihood, you are going to special order the fresh pork belly. Some grocery stores may be cooperative, or you might have to go to a specialty butcher store.
Making Bacon (two versions)
2 lbs of pork belly, skin removed
3 tablespoons sea salt
3 tablespoons brown sugar
For a basic cure, you will add:
2 teaspoons whole peppercorns
For a more savory cure, you will add:
2 teaspoons whole peppercorns
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tsp rosemary
1 tsp celery seed
1 tsp dried thyme
2 bay leaves
Put the salt, brown sugar, and the spices for your choice of cure in a blender or food processor, with the exception of the garlic clove in the savory cure. Blend or process until the peppercorns are well ground. If you’re using the savory cure, mince the garlic clove and set it aside.
If your pork belly still has the skin on it, as shown below, you will need to remove it. (The picture below shows five pounds of pork belly. I used it to make approximately two pounds of each bacon cure and one pound of salt pork, the recipe for which will be posted in the not too distant future.)
Five pounds of boneless pork belly before the skin is removed
Using a very sharp knife, remove the skin cutting it as thinly as you can manage. You don’t want to waste any of the pork belly.
Removing the skin from the pork belly
Once you have trimmed off the skin, your pork belly will look like the picture below:
Pork belly with the skin removed
Rinse the pork belly in very cold water and pat it dry with a paper towel. If you are doing the savory cure, now is the time to mix your ground salt, sugar and spice mixture in a bowl with the minced garlic. Spread half your salt, sugar, and spice mixture on a large piece of parchment paper, a large casserole dish, or a sheet pan, whatever you have in your kitchen that’s large enough to accommodate your piece of pork belly. Place the pork belly into the salt, sugar and spice mixture, and pour the remaining mixture over the top of the pork belly. Rub the mixture all over the pork, making sure to get every inch covered.
Put the pork belly in a 1 gallon resealable plastic bag, and add any of the excess salt, sugar, and spice mixture from your parchment paper, casserole dish, or sheet pan to the bag. Close the bag and shake it up to evenly distribute and coat the pork belly with the mixture. After shaking, try to remove as much of the air from the resealable plastic bag as you can so that the spice mixture stays on the pork belly and reseal it.
Pork belly coated with salt, sugar, and spice mix in resealable plastic bag
Place the bag on a plate, tray or small sheet pan so that it can be placed in your refrigerator and stay level. Refrigerate for five to seven days, flipping the bag once a day, until the pork feels firm throughout. The longer you let the pork belly cure, the saltier it will be. I preferred a cure of five days.
When the pork belly is finished curing, remove the pork belly from the resealable plastic bag and wash off the salt, sugar and spice mixture thoroughly under cold water. Pat your pork belly dry with paper towels.
You now have a choice to make. You can slice the bacon as is and then cook it, which appears to be the closest to commercial bacon, and was often referred to as “green bacon” in recipes I saw. Or you can smoke or roast the bacon. I don’t have a smoker, so I’ve not tried smoking it. I did do one batch of the roasted bacon, but I think I prefer the green bacon.
Green bacon:
We got a meat slicer as a wedding gift because my husband really wanted one, so it went on the registry. It was really helpful in slicing the green bacon.
“Green bacon” sliced
I fried some in my cast iron skillet over medium heat, as you would normally cook bacon. The home cured bacon seems to take longer than commercial bacon to cook.
Roasting the Bacon: When your bacon has cured, and you’ve rinsed and patted it dry with paper towels, pre-heat your oven to 200°F. Place the bacon in a 9 x 13″ roasting pan and roast until you’ve reached an internal temperature of 150°F. This will take between an hour and a half and two hours.
Bacon roasted in the oven
You don’t want to cook the meat, so once it reaches 150°F, remove the bacon from the oven. Let the bacon cool to room temperature.
Once your bacon has been roasted or smoked and has cooled, wrap it up in parchment paper and put it in the refrigerator until it has completely chilled. Once chilled, you can slice it and fry it up or use the oven method to cook your bacon. In the picture below, I used a chef’s knife and my knife skills aren’t all that great so the slices are a bit thicker than I would have liked. Which is why I decided to drag out the meat slicer in later experiments.
Roasted bacon after chilling and slicing
We cooked the bacon two ways here too, frying it and using the oven method.
Roasted Bacon, cooked two ways, fried and using the oven method
Smoking the Bacon: Again, I have not tried this because I don’t have a smoker, but one of the recipes I found gives the following directions. When your bacon has cured, and you’ve rinsed and patted it dry with paper towels, smoke it over hickory or apple wood at a very low temperature until bacon reaches an internal temperature of 150°F or about three hours. Let bacon cool to room temperature. Once your bacon has been roasted or smoked and has cooled, wrap it up in parchment paper and put it in the refrigerator until it has completely chilled. Once chilled, you can slice it and fry it up or use the oven method to cook your bacon.
My husband and I both preferred the oven method for cooking the bacon and we both preferred the “green bacon”, but you should experiment and see what you like best. Here’s a chart for how long your bacon will keep from the USDA. The bacon cures presented here would fall under “Bacon cured without nitrites.” I don’t want to weigh in on the nitrites being good or bad issue, it’s just that I can’t get seem to get my hands on curing salt that doesn’t also have corn (dextrose) in it.
I hope this helps those of you who can’t get commercial bacon for whatever reason. Enjoy, I did 🙂
I know. It’s spring. Or, rather, “spring.” The thing is? It’s still pretty cold here, and on top of that, damp. So, basically, it’s still soup weather, and rather than being cranky about it, let’s just make some good veggie stock to cook up some of the vegetables that might, in a perfect world, soon be coming out of the ground. Or, maybe, going into the ground. Man, this whole seasonal blah is really not inspiring me! But I’m hungry, and soup is good.
So. Soup stock. As with Denise’s Roasted Beef Stock, this vegetable stock gets a lot of its flavor from caramelizing the sugars in the vegetables by roasting them first. Deglazing the roasting pan with white wine or sherry adds a little extra hit of flavor, but if you don’t have or don’t want to use alcohol, water will work. Just make sure to scrape the bits up really well — there’s flavor in there.
This stock can be the base for pretty much any soup, though if you’re going for a specific flavor profile, consider that when choosing your herbs. I’ve given very specific measurements here because part of the reason we’re posting basics like stock is that we know that some people have always purchased stock, either in bouillon cubes or in boxes or cans. Allergies take away that option (damn allergies) or make it difficult, so if soup stock is part of your learning curve, we’ve got it covered. BUT. Stock is inherently flexible, so feel free to play with the recipe. You do not need exactly what I’ve used, and the measurements are overly precise (unnecessarily so) just in case you’re a newbie and want that. I weighed everything that was roasted, just for you, and since I was doing that, did metric and US weights. I don’t actually know metric measurements otherwise, so they aren’t included other than that. Sorry about that.
A note on ingredients and prep: in a stock, you’re extracting flavor. So you want the best produce you can buy, and you want to alter it as little as possible. Because of this, when possible, I buy organic vegetables to roast, and I wash them well. I don’t peel them. Chop them roughly, and remove only parts that are bad or brown, and any parts that might burn (onion skin).
Ungarnished Broth. Photo by Jack Andrews
Roasted Vegetable Stock
There are two sets of ingredients in this recipe. The first set get roasted. The second set go straight into the stock pot.
Roasted Ingredients
To go into the oven:
7 carrots (9.5 oz, 269g)
7 stalks of celery, plus core (15 oz, 425g)
2 apples (12 oz, 345g)
1 onion (8.5 oz, 237g)
4 large shallots (1 lb., 453g)
a handful of garlic cloves, about half a head on a typical US-sized clove (2 oz, 64g)
1/4 to 1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 Tablespoon salt
1/4 cup of white wine, red wine, sherry, or water (reserved — use this after roasting)
Preheat your oven to 400°F.
Chop the carrots and celery into about 1 inch chunks — remove any greenery from carrots, and remove and reserve all the celery leaves (see below). Quarter the apples and remove the part of the core containing the seeds. Quarter the onion and halve each quarter — remove all the papery skin. Same with the shallots (note — I used shallots here because they looked good at the store when I was buying the veg — you could just use another onion or two here, but less in weight than shallots, as shallots are milder). Remove the skin on the garlic cloves.
Place all the veg in a baking pan or roasting pan with sides, metal is preferred. Douse them with olive oil and salt, and turn everything around in the oil until it’s well-coated.
Put the pan in the oven and set the timer for 30 minutes. You’ll need an hour, possibly an hour and a half to get a good caramelized brown all over all your veg, so plan accordingly. Check every 30 minutes, and beware of sticking your head close to the oven as you open it — there’s a lot of steam in there. And yes, I forget that every.single.time.
Now, your second set of ingredients for the stock — the ones that do not get roasted.
Into the stockpot:
another handful of garlic cloves
all of the celery leaves — don’t waste them!
1/2 a bunch of parsley
3-4 sprigs of dill, or another fresh herb that looks good at your store and is soup-appropriate (rosemary, basil, oregano, thyme — all would be good options)(optional, but adds freshness)
2 bay leaves
2 teaspoons dried thyme
1 Tablespoon whole peppercorns (this does NOT make your stock hot — the peppercorns aren’t broken, so most of the oil stays in, but it adds a nice flavor) (if you are Denise and you’re making this, you would likely add dried chilies here instead, but those will be hot — if that’s your thing, do it!)
about 10 cups of water
Get all this (MINUS the water) ready in your pot while everything else roasts.
When the roasting is done, scrape the roasted veg directly into the stockpot. Deglaze your pan with your water or wine by pouring the cold liquid on the hot pan and using that to scrape up all the roasted bits stuck to the pan. Add that to the stock pot.
Then add water, enough cover all the stuff in the pan by about two inches. Bring this to a boil, then reduce and simmer for 30-45 minutes.
Strain out and discard the vegetables and herbs, and either use it to make soup right away, or store it. This should keep in the fridge for about a week, or store it in the freezer. With 10 cups of water, I got not quite 3 full quart jars of stock.
