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Breakfast Bacon

A cured bacon prepared by brining fresh meat in a salt, sugar, molasses, and mineral brine, then smoking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and molasses are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Breakfast Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the brine

  1. Boil the soft water, salt, brown sugar, saltpetre, saleratus, and molasses together.

  2. Skim the mixture well and let it cool.

Cure the meat

  1. Cut the sides of fresh meat into about three strips each.

  2. Pack the meat in jars.

  3. Pour the cooled brine over the meat, ensuring it is fully covered.

Smoke and store

  1. Smoke the meat, then enclose it in paper or cloth sacks for storage.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + molassestop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Meat + sugartop 34% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,866 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Meat + molassestop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together441 recipes

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Sides of fresh meat
Forms the bacon itself, which is firmed and flavoured by the cure.
Salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat while helping preserve it.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the salt in the cure.
Saltpetre
Helps keep the cured meat's pink colour and inhibits spoilage bacteria.
Molasses
Adds deep flavour, sweetness and a dark colour to the cure.
Saleratus
Raises the cure's alkalinity, aiding browning and mellowing the meat's flavour.

The step that matters

Skim the brine well before cooling. Boiling the cure pulls impurities and foam to the surface; leaving them in can spoil the brine or mar the meat's flavour, so skimming keeps the cure clean for the long soak.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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