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Roast Bacon

Bacon soaked, simmered, and roasted with cider vinegar and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Cider and vinegar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,431 recipes. Both carry 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

Roast Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the bacon overnight.

  2. Simmer the bacon for 1 hour per pound.

  3. Let it cool in the cooking water.

  4. Remove the skin from the bacon.

Glaze and roast

  1. Rub the fat with sugar.

  2. Pour cider vinegar over the bacon.

  3. Roast in the oven until brown.

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. Cider + vinegartop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,431 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-ethyl-2-methoxyphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Cider + sugartop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Bacon
Provides the meat and fat that render and brown during roasting.
Cider vinegar
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness and sharpens the flavour of the glaze.
Sugar
Caramelises on the fat surface, adding sweetness and helping the bacon brown.

The step that matters

Roast in the oven until brown. Sugar caramelises and proteins brown only at sufficient heat, so the bacon can look pale or stay soft if roasting is cut short. Watch the colour rather than only the clock.

“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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