Much thanks to US for making this wonderful bacon adventure possible. For those unfamiliar with slab bacon, we didn’t know much about it, either, until now.
At first glance we thought it looked a bit fatty and we noticed that the butcher shop had cut the slab bacon quite a bit thicker than we had seen bacon in the past.
As you can see, the slab bacon definitely seemed to have some serious fat lines running through it. Oh well. The bacon sampling must go on!
So next we got out the trusty frying pan and fired up the stove. Then we added… bacon. Wow. What a surprise, right?
To be honest, though, at this point we expected this slab bacon to produce a HUGE amount of grease. We got a pleasant surprise instead.
The pan barely wound up with any bacon grease at all despite the WONDERFUL, rich aroma of bacon which filled the kitchen and our lungs. Additionally, we saw very little shrinkage in the meat throughout the cooking process.
We wound up with a nice, healthy looking batch of bacon which we could hardly wait to eat…
Taste Test Results: Slab bacon itself contained a lot of grease. It left our lips slimy with bacon grease despite careful blotting off of surface grease wth paper towels. The meat required a good deal of chewing and edges sometimes got damn near impossible to chew through. The flavor of the meat, though, definitely made it a pleasure to eat regardless of its occasional rubberiness. Also, we did not get slapped in the face with an overly salty taste, and we liked that a lot. All bacon should contain some salt, yes, but too much salt destroys one’s enjoyment of the meat.
Varied cooking times and temperatures yielded similar results.
Conclusion: Slab bacon has a very strong character and would look great on a plate when serving up a breakfast, lunch or dinner where appearance meant a lot. We don’t think slab bacon will become a staple here at our place, but from time-to-time we will make a trip to the butcher shop to pick up some more. The flavor of the meat merits another trip!
We give “slab bacon” a final rating of 3 strips (out of 5).
