Makin' Bacon - what did I do wrong?

corblimey

AS a dry run for my first christmas cooking for myself, I decided to boil up some bacon and cabbage for myself yesterday. First time trying it, and I think I made a bit of a hash of it. Basically, the resulting bacon tasted a little off, and felt quite 'gummy' to eat, as if it was kinda sticking to my teeth a little. It wasn't at all tasty, even tasteless.

I put the bacon (ham fillet cut from Centra) into a large pot, covered it with cold water, and brought it to the boil I then covered it and simmered for about 2 hours (it was about a kilo of bacon, but I like to be well cooked).

Can anyone discern what I may have done wrong?

Doodah7

Did you remember to soak the ham/bacon in cold water for a few hours before cooking??? This takes out most of the salt. In addition, when you initially boil the ham, a kind of 'scum' should appear on the surface of the water. You should remove this.

As for cabbage, chop, leave in a bowl of water for a few minutes, strain, add to boiling water for a few minutes, remove, strain, add some freshly cracjed black pepper and serve.

corblimey

I didn't soak beforehand, but the problem didn't appear to be an overbundance of salt - the ham was just tasteless and 'gummy'.

The cabbage was fine.

CJhaughey

It was probably Sh1te bacon, head down to the friendly local butcher and ask him for a piece of good bacon, not your supermarket sh1te.
He will probably tell ye how to cook it as well.

corblimey

Possibly, CJ. can you give me some pointers on how to get a good joint from the butcher? What sort of cut, fatty/non fatty, etc?

CJhaughey

IMHO the best bacon always has a good layer of fat under the skin, probably 6mm thick, this is where the flavour is in pork.
Most people these days think that looking at fat will give them an instant heart attack, so companies bow to demand and produce very lean cuts of pork which do not taste or cook well.
I am sure that if you go to a good butcher and ask him for a decent piece of bacon preferably stuff that he makes himself, then you can't go wrong.
and don't be scared of a bit of fat in the bacon:)

Degsy

CJhaughey wrote:

IMHO the best bacon always has a good layer of fat under the skin, probably 6mm thick, this is where the flavour is in pork.
Most people these days think that looking at fat will give them an instant heart attack, so companies bow to demand and produce very lean cuts of pork which do not taste or cook well.
I am sure that if you go to a good butcher and ask him for a decent piece of bacon preferably stuff that he makes himself, then you can't go wrong.
and don't be scared of a bit of fat in the bacon:)

I completely agree.The muck that suprmarkets sell is an absolute disgrace,the meat is never aged and this fat-free nonsense means there's no flavour in anything.The flavour in most meat comes from the fat.Support your local butcher before the supermarkets put them all out of business!

Beruthiel

corblimey wrote:

(ham fillet cut from Centra)

there's your problem right there

from what I can recall, my mother would bring the water to boil, empty the pot, fill with cold water, bring to boil, repeat (about 4 times) - the ham was always tasty.