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Bacon, Boiled
Put the piece of bacon to be boiled into the pot with sufficient cold water to cover it. Allow it very gradually to come to a boil, removing all scum as it arises, and draw it aside to simmer until thoroughly done; then pull off the skin and serve with bread-crumbs over the top. Time to boil two pounds, one hour and a half; half an hour for each additional pound.
A gammon joint by another name: "bacon" here means a whole cured cut, not rashers. The instructions still work, though the timings run long by current standards.
- What to buyAsk for an unsmoked or smoked gammon joint, a bacon collar, or a piece of green (unsmoked) streaky in one piece, 2-4 lb with the rind on. Supermarket rashers cannot be substituted.
- Soak firstVictorian bacon was heavily dry-salted and needed several hours in cold water, changed once or twice, before boiling. Modern cures are much milder; taste the cooking water after twenty minutes and if it is aggressively salty, tip it out and start again with fresh cold water.
- The hinge is the slow startBringing the pot up gradually and then holding it at a bare simmer, with the surface barely trembling, is what keeps the meat from tightening and going stringy. A hard boil will do more damage than an extra twenty minutes of gentle heat.
- TimingAn hour and a half for two pounds is generous. Reckon 20-25 minutes per pound plus 20 minutes, and check the centre with a thermometer; 160-165F is done, and the rind should peel away cleanly while the joint is hot.
- "Bread-crumbs over the top"These are raspings: dried crusts grated fine and toasted to a pale brown, patted onto the fat once the skin is off. Dry commercial crumbs browned briefly in a dry pan give the same effect. Fresh soft crumbs will go soggy.
- Keep the liquorThe strained cooking water makes a good base for pea or lentil soup, provided you have controlled the salt. Do not season that soup until it has reduced.
- Yield and servingA 2 lb joint serves four to six. Hot, it wants parsley sauce or mustard and boiled potatoes; cold and pressed overnight under a plate, it slices thinly for sandwiches.
Boiled bacon was infrastructure rather than a dish: a cured joint kept without refrigeration, fed a household hot on the first day and cold for several after, and left behind a pot of savoury liquor that became the next day's soup. The distinction between bacon and ham, both cuts from the pig and both cured, is that ham is the hind leg and bacon comes from the side, back or collar, a division that survives in British butchery and is largely lost in American usage, where "bacon" has narrowed to mean cured belly cut in rashers. Browned breadcrumbs on the exposed fat were a common nineteenth-century finish for boiled cured joints, valued for giving a plain white surface some colour and a little crispness at table.