 Today we're talking about bacon, bacon and more bacon. Plus we have a bacon review. Hey there, NJRoot22.com here with a bacon review and a bacon Esk chat. We're gonna talk about how we cook bacon and how it works out. But first of all this is a primarily a review about broad-bent country style bacon. We found that at McCaffrey's supermarket down in Princeton, it's far off the root22.com, NJRoot22.com path, but it's a path we take and it's an offshoot of this website's coverage area. So this is about broad-bent bacon, but it's also about how we cook bacon and how it happens here. So what we do normally do is I bake in the oven maybe about two-thirds of a pack of bacon and the other third or so, whatever doesn't fit nicely on a cookie sheet, gets fried up. I mean, I do this for a couple reasons. One, I realize I like cooking it both ways to see if there's any difference in texture or taste. You know, I always like pan-fried bacon, but cooking up an entire pound of it requires especially if you're using one pan, you have to rotate. You can't cook the whole pound at one time. So I like doing everything at once. So I'll cook most of it in the oven and whatever doesn't fit on the pan nicely, I cook on the pan. It's somehow this system has worked out for me. I think many of you who read this or watch this will agree. Instead of having to do, sometimes I had to do two cookie sheets or you have to overlap the bacon and it gets annoying because if you want to flip the bacon the pieces stick together. It's like a real kind of a pain in the neck. So I put about whatever fits nicely on the pan without touching each other, goes into the oven and then whatever's left over gets cooked on a frying pan. I mean, most the traditionalists will use cast iron. Some people might use, you know, the stainless steel pans. I like using my copper pan because it's the easiest to clean. So everybody has their own way of doing it. I'll put a big sheet of a heavy-duty foil down and then I'll put parchment on top. Not because I'm afraid of aluminum or anything like that. It's because when I use my tongs to flip the bacon and it hits the parchment, it doesn't create a hole in the foil and that will defeat the purpose of foil lining your pan because then the grease will seep through and you'll have to wash the pan anyway. If you do this method, no grease will leak through and you just wrap it up at the end and throw it out. So that's that. So I'll stick it in the oven. I learned somewhere on the internet that it's best not to preheat that. I didn't pick up on exactly why, but my guess is, and this is just a scientific guess, or a non-scientific guess, is that as the oven heats up, instead of putting in a 300 or 350 or whatever 425, there's all these different temperatures, instead of putting it in a hot oven and it starts cooking everything, the slow preheating of the oven lets the fat kind of become translucent. It somehow cooks better and I'm not arguing. I like doing it that way. So I'll stick it in the oven, turn it on and let that go. It takes significantly longer than frying. But as far as the pan, you don't really have to preheat it. I like doing it anyway because it gets the whole process going quickly instead of, I don't think it matters. So don't worry whether you preheat it. I just put it on a pan and start cooking. I turn my pan to about half heat because I don't want it to get way out of control, like bubbling and popping. You ever get bacon grease in your eye? That sucks. So I'll cook it on medium heat. That provides enough heat for it to cook. And I typically, my rule is, or my method is that once the pieces become translucent, fat, I'll flip it. That's my key to flip it. And then I watch it. And I'll flip it a few times just to make them cook evenly on both sides on the pan method. As far as this broadband bacon, it's important to take a look at this little video here. It's smoked a little more than other bacons I've used. And we'll get to why this broadband bacon is a little bit different than your typical refrigerated bacon that you find in a supermarket. But it's smoked. We have a hood over the stove, so it didn't ruin the house and make everybody unhappy that there was bacon smell everywhere. Although, it's like 12 hours later and it smells like bacon a little bit. But that's not a bad thing for most carnivore, low-carb people. Bacon is okay. But the four pieces, oh yeah, by the way, this broadband was 14 pieces, I'm sorry, 11 pieces of bacon, 14 ounces. So I put seven in the oven and four on the pan. You could probably count as you saw in the previous slides. But it came out great. Perfect. It was like restaurant-style bacon. It's a high-end place that they put them all on a nice, separate plate. But the oven did take longer and because of the fact I didn't preheat it. And I'm fine with that. You just have to have patience. Don't rush the bacon. Now, we use a temperature of about 300 degrees. That's been the ballpark that I like. Some people do it lower and longer and you might get a more stable piece of bacon. But this was thick cut bacon as far as I'm concerned. Most normal sliced bacon is usually about an ounce of slice. And the thick cut is usually maybe an ounce and a half, a slice ounce and a quarter. So this works out in that range. You know, again, I flipped it a few times and at the end, sometimes I might put the broiler on just to give it that final kick for the last five minutes or so, just to give it a nice crisp. And that's it, basically. And they came out, all the pieces came out, I think, really good. But now here's my little review for the Broadbent's bacon. And this is a unique bacon because, well, it's some family that makes it by hand and so on. It's not a mass produced bacon product like most others people are accustomed to. But the first thing you'll notice when you cook this Broadbent and you open up the package is that it's extremely easy to work with. It does not stretch. You ever try to take bacon off a slab and it stretches and it gets all long and you got, that's a little bit of a pet peeve of mine. It's a little annoying. I mean, there's some techniques that people use by using like a rubber spatula to dislodge it. I mean, there's a lot of different ways that takes a long time. This was beautiful. It really, really worked quite nicely. It was almost like working like little pieces of like steak. It just worked out really nice. On the downside, if there is any, this, the texture of this Broadbent's bacon, this was nitrate free. It's important to note that because I don't know if the other varieties of Broadbent's bacon is different in texture because of the nitrates, nitrites or whatever they're called. Everybody's upset about it. It's a natural part of the curing process, in our opinion. It was a little too crunchy. It was a little bit hard on the teeth, I would say. There's one negative about it. But the fat part, if cooked properly and not overly cooked to the point where all the fat goes away, was nice. It was definitely melting your mouth. And the flavor was good. I don't know if cherry would smoke. I don't know. I've had better with regular supermarket brands in my opinion, taste-wise. But there's two things about this bacon that I guess are the make or break for a lot of people, depending on your circumstances. Number one, it's a little bit expensive. I think it was nine bucks for a pack, which I think is expensive for bacon, even at a pound. This was 14 ounces at nine bucks. Where normally I buy bacon at the supermarket when it's, you know, $2.99 or $3.99 a pound. The Hormel low sodium is my favorite because it uses sea salt. Remember that, always. When you see that on sale, buy multiple packs. But the most incredible thing about this broad-bent bacon is that it's shelf-stable. It does not require refrigeration. I don't think it really even has an expiration date. You can probably stick it in the closet and find it five years later and still cook it and it'll be good. And that is kind of a big deal for some people like overly prepper. They like to prep or say you're just a busy family and you want to have bacon at all times. You won't run out if you keep this in your closet. It's a good way. I think it's just a sensible way to always, you know, splurge a little bit on this shelf-stable bacon and have it. You can even keep it in your prepping basement if you have one. So that's pretty much it. And that's how we do it. And some people may like to, you know, microwave bacon, which I, in a pinch, in the worst case or last resort-type situation, I'll microwave some bacon. It's never good. If you're busy and you're five minutes to go to for work, sure, why not? But I know people use bacon presses to make the bacon perfectly flat. It's a little anal, in my opinion. But that's basically it. I mean, how do you cook your bacon? Do you have any different method? You just, just like everybody else, throw it on a pan and deal with it. One last thing here real quick is that I save my bacon grease a lot of the time. I'll pour it into a glass and let it cool off at room temperature until it solidifies and I'll stick it in the fridge. We use the bacon fat for a lot of things. You can flavor foods pretty much for free. Why throw out? It's like throwing out butter. I cook eggs in bacon fat. It doesn't have to be 100% bacon fat. You can use your butter. We don't recommend sprays, cooking sprays, or lame. If you have a nonstick, I like the copper pan. It really works best for almost everything. But I'll put a pad of butter and a little spoonful of bacon fat on there to cook the eggs in. And it just comes out really, really good. I highly recommend you save it. You can use it for a lot of things. A lot of recipes call for bacon fat. And it's good to have on hand. Some people filter out the droppings. I don't bother. It's, it's, you could pour it from the pan into the glass and just leave the droppings at the very end. And a few droppings just add flavor. It's not a bad thing. So that's it. This was supposed to be a five minute video and it went on over 10. But I hope everybody who loves bacon got something from them because bacon is the best. Have a good week.