salt pork

[strongarm]

Is salt pork commerially available?

I'm making a 19 th centuray recipe for Christmas Eve which call to cook down salt pork as a meat base.

I was thinking of using bacon as a subsitute. Any suggestions?

The recipe also calls for some bourbon and almost a quart of Stout. I will use only the best; Jack Danials and Guiness. And I'll have to finich all the bottles as to not waste any!!! lol

If successful I'll pubhlish the recipe. :applause:

 

[twobirds]

Yeah, salt pork is available at most any grocery store. At least it is here in the south. Usually packaged as small squares (about 4"X4" or so) with the rind still on. Usually in the same refrigerated case as bacon. If you haven't tried it before, it's REALLY salty. I used to eat it fried up straight out of the package, but most people boil it in a couple of changes of water before frying it - take a lot of the salt out. Bacon may give your dish a smoky flavor that is not intended.

 

[bnail]

Yeah, salt pork is available at most any grocery store. At least it is here in the south. Usually packaged as small squares (about 4"X4" or so) with the rind still on. Usually in the same refrigerated case as bacon. If you haven't tried it before, it's REALLY salty. I used to eat it fried up straight out of the package, but most people boil it in a couple of changes of water before frying it - take a lot of the salt out. Bacon may give your dish a smoky flavor that is not intended.

Two birds, I'm glad you said that.
I was raised on fried salt pork. When I told my mother in law that I used to eat it fried, she practically called me a lier! She kept maintaining that what I ate was "Side Meat." :youcrazy:
one of my favorite Breakfasts still today is salt prok, Fresh Hog's head bisquits, Grits, and Red-eye gravy. . . Man, I'm gettin' hungry just thinking about! :thumbsup:

 

[chipper]

I used to love salt pork so much when I was a kid that I carred a chunk under my tounge to school. I had forgotten about this fact and my older sister reminded me of it at a receint get-togethers.

My friend from Romania calls it boiled bacon. It's the same stuff, they just boil it first then fry it up with blood or liver sausage for breakfast. The Romanians serve the bacon with mustard and raw onion as garnish. I tried this once, I had stomach cramps most of the day.

Regards
Wounded Knee

 

[brian turpin]

Sounds like the same kind of breakfast I had when I was growing up. My Mom would fry out the fat back and then make milk gravy out of the leavings in the pan. Gravy and bisques man o man. If you were to put one of those on top of your head your tongue would beat your brains out to get to it! We had three kinds of salt pork. Fat back, which is just salt cured fat with the skin still on. Streak of lean, which is bacon that has been cured in salt. No hickory flavor. And finally country ham. We always made our redeye gravy from the leaving of country ham. My favorite way to have redeye gravy is to dice up a very ripe tomato into a bowl, then pour the still scalding hot gravy on the tomatoes. Spoon this over grits and you have a real treat.
Bimbo

 

[dwarvenchef]

STOUT??? I need to see that recipe :grin: I'm always interested in recipies with beer in them. As well as old time stuff. Guinness is ok but there are many fine stouts to be found locally. Stop by any Bev Mo and ask for a showing of the stouts they have. You can get a wide veriety of flavors by useing different stouts.

I'm trying to find early brewing info for the fur trapping era still reading up the book on early American brewing. See what I can biece together. I may have to settle for a later date for my "Kit" as I will be setting up a small camp for brewing.

 

[twobirds]

one of my favorite Breakfasts still today is salt prok, Fresh Hog's head bisquits, Grits, and Red-eye gravy. . . Man, I'm gettin' hungry just thinking about! :thumbsup:

Yeah, wouldn't it be great to live back in the 18th century before cholestrol was invented? :winking: :haha:

 

[George F.]

Without stating the obvious what exactatly is salt pork, and what does it taste like? As you can tell I'm an eastern Northerner raised in the suburbs. Thanks so much, humor is accepted.......George F.

 

[Keppy]

You being in Wisconsin you should be able to buy salt pork in any grocery store or a meat market.

 

[Keppy]

George
Salt pork is very salty. The salt pork I have had comes in a chunk and I cut it in slices like bacon. I have fried it crisp, have it with eggs or put it in beans. Like I said very salty. It was a way to keep it from spoiling I was told.

 

[Birdman]

George, fat back is just the fat from a pig nearer the and sometimes including the skin from the same area as bacon. It does not have any meat running through it, and as said before, it is cured in a salt brine and is VERY salty to the taste. If ya ever had Cambells pork n beans n saw those little chunks of fat in it- thats actually fatback after it's been cooked to death. Many cooks use it for a source of grease(flavor) and salt in a recipe when frying something else, simaler to frying bacon and then onions n such. It doesn't have the smokey taste that bacon has. Hope this helps some YMHS Birdman

 

[bnail]

Hey Bimbo:
Being from the Frozen North, I don't get good country hams more than once every two years or so.
Consequently, I have to substitute for the country ham drippings when I make Red-eye gravy.

 

[twobirds]

Without stating the obvious what exactatly is salt pork, and what does it taste like? As you can tell I'm an eastern Northerner raised in the suburbs. Thanks so much, humor is accepted.......George F.

Well...how do describe what something tastes like? :hmm: Doesn't taste like chicken...tastes more like pig! :haha: Kinda like the fatty edges of a fried pork chop, only saltier. Like I said earlier, most folks boil it with a change of water before frying it up. I'm sure it's healthier that way. Oh, and since you a novice at this, trim the rind (cured skin) off when you slice it. You don't eat that part, but it makes good perch bait that NEVER comes off the hook. I've learned to state the obvious to Yankees ever since I saw President Ford try to eat a tamale with the corn shuck still on it. :youcrazy: :v

Best thing to do is just go buy a chunk of salt pork and try it. If you don't like it, you're only out a couple of bucks (we're not talking gourmet food here). But it's great to season peas )dried, split, green up north. Purplehulls down here) and truly a PC food, once you get it out of the plastic. Only made it once from a hog I helped butcher in Missouri, packed it in cattle salt to preserve it (maybe that's what's wrong with me...? :haha: ) Enough rambling and pickin'. :yakyak: Y'all have a Merry Christmas.

 

[shmrck1]

Until i was old enough to know the difference,
I thought salt pork was bacon. Back in those
days they almost gave away chunks of it.
Nowadays it almost cost as much as bacon.
It is great in been soup.
snake-eyes :hmm:

 

[dwarvenchef]

The way I use salt pork is to cut it into lardon and blanch. This removes alot of the excess salt so your dish will not be over salty.

 

[shmrck1]

Chef,
My wife buys ham steaks and i soak them in cold water and rinse just to get some of the
salt out. These days it seems like all ham
products are very salty. Maybe it's my age.
I do like salt though..
snake-eyes :hmm:

 

[longfowler]

when I was younger, I helped boil maple syrup a couple of times for different folks and every single sugar shack I've ever been in has a piece of salt pork on a stick resting against the side of the pan. it's dipped into the boiling sap to reduce the foam...somthing about fat content and surface tension. when the sugaring season ends, you take that piece of salt pork and cook it up in your baked beans and OH MY GOD!! salt, maple sugar & pure fat....it doesn't get any better than that. I also got some salt pork from the local grocery store and added it to my deer meat when I ground it to hamburg this fall, it gave it a flavor like mild sausage. it's so good I might not use beef fat ever again.

 

[graybeard]

Sorry, but if you are a Guinness drinker that's the only stout there is. Nothing else can compare. :winking: graybeard

 

[dwarvenchef]

Sorry, but if you are a Guinness drinker that's the only stout there is. Nothing else can compare. :winking: graybeard

Very true, it has a taste un-to it's own. I just like RIS (russian imperial stout) the kind you can stand a spoon in, and watch it slowly desolve... :grin:

 

[Pork Chop]

Thanks for asking the question about fat back! You took me back to my childhood and going to my grandparents house. We used to have fat back at almost every breakfast. It was sliced like bacon (sometimes thicker) and fried. Us grandkids could hardly wait to get at it - often burning our fingertips trying to get it as soon as it got dropped on the paper towels to drain. Salty as all get out but GOOOOOD!! If it is sliced thin, the skin can stay on it and it is something you can chew no for a while to keep the flavor going.

My wife would faint at the idea of eating fried fat, but man, I may have to go to the grocery store to do some shopping...