The Straightforward Restaurant Trick for Chopping Bacon With out a Mess

The world is filled with futile undertakings. There’s not a lot level, as an illustration, in making an attempt to herd cats, squeeze water from a stone, or nail Jell-O to a tree. And, whereas there could also be a couple of method to pores and skin mentioned cats, I can let you know from private expertise that skinning eels can drive an individual mad with frustration. However of all of the kitchen duties that make me need to pound my head in opposition to the counter, dicing room-temp bacon must be one of many worst.

Slippery and squidgy when even barely heat, the broad striations of fats in bacon, pancetta, salt pork, and fatback slither and squirm beneath the blade as you attempt to slice them. A razor-sharp knife can simply get the job achieved, as long as you’re employed quick and it stays chilly, however dillydally in any respect and also you’re extra more likely to find yourself with a ragged pile of torn, shredded, mashed, and smashed bits than the great pile of even cuts you had been aiming for.

This occurs as a result of animal fat are a fancy combination of various saturated and unsaturated fat, and thus soften over a large temperature vary. When you’d should warmth pork fats to properly over 100°F (38°C) to completely render it, a few of its elements will start to liquefy even at room temperature. Contact it along with your fingers as you cube it, and your physique warmth warms it up much more, partially melting it and making a slippery texture. With every passing second, the fats turns into increasingly more troublesome to work with.

After all, as with many issues, the answer is clear, and it is one thing many cooks do: Hold it chilly. What could also be much less apparent is simply how chilly.

You’ve gotten a few selections right here. You would, as an illustration, simply hold all of your fatty pork merchandise, like bacon and pancetta, properly wrapped within the freezer always, which is what many eating places do. Kenji, as an illustration, tells me that he all the time retains his sliced bacon within the freezer, chopping off solely what he wants from the frozen-together strips. (They inevitably stick collectively when frozen, so making an attempt to peel off particular person strips will simply get you a bunch of damaged and torn shards.) This technique might be tougher with slab bacon and different strong cuts, like fatback, which freeze so laborious by means of the middle that attempting to chop them turns into like attempting to push a knife by means of a block of ice.

You’ll be able to nonetheless make it work by merely tossing the frozen hunk of fatty pork on an aluminum baking sheet for a number of minutes till it is comfortable sufficient to chop. As we have proven earlier than, the superb conductivity of aluminum quickly transfers the room’s warmth into the frozen meals sitting on it.

The opposite choice, which is commonly what I do, is to maintain the pork cuts in your fridge and simply toss them within the freezer for 10 to fifteen minutes to provide them a deep chill earlier than slicing. The purpose, in spite of everything, is not to freeze the fats totally, however to drop the temperature sufficient that it turns into workably strong. Because the fats will get colder, it hardens extra, supplying you with one thing agency to slip your knife by means of.

That, as they are saying, is as simple as apple pie, and also you, as a substitute of being pissed off, might be as joyful as a pig in…(not the freezer).

December 2016