Buying 'good' bacon?

Miss Chief

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Like a lot of people I love a bacon roll on a Sunday morning. Actually most mornings if I could but what is 'good' bacon? I usually buy supermarket bacon which has been fine and I try to pick up the slices with the most pink area but should I be buying the rashers with a good marbling through them? I know bacon is often injected with water and the funny white stuff that often comes out is the preservative but is there something I'm missing out on? Any tips to buying excellent bacon?

Forgot to add, brown sauce or red? :D used to always be red but I've got a thing for HP honey BBQ sauce at the moment. :smashin:
 
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Bacon from Costco :p its a good 5mm thick lol and really big pieces :clap:
 
HP honey BBQ rocks.

I think it's personal preference, I like Crispy streaky bacon which we do in a 210 degree oven then place between sheets of kitchen roll. Crisps up fantastically. I've not noticed any benefit to buying expensive bacon for this as after all we are deliberately over cooking it.

However if your preference is for thick cut back bacon then I've always found the butcher is the way to go rather than supermarket, thick cut back bacon from a butcher fried is fantastic, but it's much closer to gammon.

in fact I'm about to have a crispy streaky bacon and fried egg sandwich with tiger loaf bread and honey bbq sauce yummy.
 
Buy the best you can get,cheap bacon is rubbish full of water.
As for sauce:

Northerner- Brown

Southerner- Red :thumbsup:
 
Got food poisoning from it when I was 18 from a road side butty van, the bloke got fined and shut down was in hospital for a week, never eat any pig since.
 
I'm a brown sauce person myself (and a fried egg with runny yolk please).

I like a bit of marbling as it keeps your bacon moist. Dependent on if you like your bacon crispy or not I may choose streaky over back bacon.

With regards to what makes good bacon, try some at different butchers until you find the one you like the taste of :)
 
Agree - cheap stuff is full of water and has no taste.
 
Do you have farm type shops around where you live? I usually find their products very good if a little more expensive. Don't forget a quality roll/bread is just as important. I love tiger bread with mayo to go with my bacon :)
 
Buy the best you can get,cheap bacon is rubbish full of water.
As for sauce:

Northerner- Brown

Southerner- Red :thumbsup:

Noooooooo - I'm an ex-londoner, and have always had brown sauce on an egg or bacon sarnie
 
I buy free range belly or loin and cure and smoke it myself. :D
 
Why go to the trouble of finding good quality meat and cooking it properly, and then lose it under all this gooey cold liquid:confused:
 
Why go to the trouble of finding good quality meat and cooking it properly, and then lose it under all this gooey cold liquid:confused:

Very wise words. Good quality bacon is a must (find a local butcher!) but to then smother it in sauce, red or brown, is just wrong. So very wrong. Everything you've gained is washed away, it just tastes of sauce.

Quality bacon, lightly toasted brown roll, butter, big mug of tea. Simples :)
 
If you can't taste the bacon something is going wrong! A bit of brown sauce and I can still taste the bacony goodness
 
Always put brown sauce on a bacon sarny,it adds to the flavour. Lovely !
 
Good quality thick cut bacon from the butcher, a fried egg with runny yolk and a nice tiger bun with a small blob of brown sauce.
 
If you can't taste the bacon something is going wrong! A bit of brown sauce and I can still taste the bacony goodness

You don't drown bacon in brown sauce it compliments it. Brings out even more flavour. And how you can have a bacon butty without brown sauce. And tomatoe sauce with bacon is just wrong.

Farmfoods bacon is excellent value, think £5 for two large unsmoked packs (prefer smoked but they don't have them) As good as supermarket stuff which is about £2 for 8 rashers.
 
I find Waitrose's essential bacon is water free, no gunk comes out.
 
I personally think it's a sin to put any kind of sauce on bacon! Wouldn't do if we all liked the same things I guess :)
 
it does seem bad now that to get some decent bacon (which used to be the norm at any shop and at a reasonable price) you have to go to Farmer type shops or butchers in the country and pay over the odds. I bought some back bacon from a farm shop yesterday it was gorgeous, no water or white gunk but I paid nearly £4 for 6 slices.
 
There's a farm near us that opens up every so often for breakfast on a weekend... went yesterday and had bacon that still had hairs in it... now THAT is proper bacon!
 
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Try the bacon from Donald Russell, had that the other day and it was in a different league compared to the crap in supermarkets.
 
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