Making Bacon – Part 4 – Salt Pork

Sick of pork yet? 

In case you aren’t, here are the first three posts in this little series…

Making Bacon - Step 1 - Curing

Making Bacon - Step 2 - Smoking

Making Bacon - Part 3 - Fried Pork Rinds

And now…something to do with portions of fat and meat that aren’t really bacon or ribs….

This is more from the very first time we attempted bacon, back before we knew you should remove the ribs from the slab of pork belly. 

We kind of just smoked the whole thing, and then we ended up with pieces of meat and fat that we really didn’t know what to do with.

And then one of us thought – salt pork!

Ours would be more properly termed smoked salt pork.  We figured it would be a good way to save some of the pork.

First, I cut the pieces of smoked pork meat/fat into smaller chunks.  I put a thick layer of kosher salt in a pyrex baking dish, layered in the pork…

And then covered the pork with more salt.

Then I covered the pan with foil and left it in the fridge for about six weeks.

And when I unveiled it, the pork had shrunk and changed texture. 

It looked pretty cool, actually.

We’ve used this when we’ve made chowders, and – hey! – it works just like store-bought salt pork!

So, that’s my short and sweet salt pork post.