It can’t be just me who has wondered why we only tend to cure pork products (in the UK at least). Why no beef bacon or lamb ham?
H has recently been buying meat online from Coombe Farm after a tip-off from a friend. They have some really interesting and unusual products and cuts, including Lamb Bacon.
The instant I knew of its existence, I wanted to try it. After my forays into vegan bacon, I felt it would be a great way to establish how much of bacon’s identity came from meat generally, and how much from pork specifically.
H fried it up and reported it generated an immense amount of fat. This is something that can be challenging with certain cuts of lamb, eg shoulder – the insane greasiness. It makes it hard for me to eat cold leftovers when they are encased in a smeary sheen of white fat.
I sat in a lordly fashion on the sofa and he brought my dinner to me (sorry no pics of the cooked product). It looked a lot like bacon but a bit browner. It was heavily fried to rigidity – just how I like it.
It smelled like cooked lamb and lamb fat – the latter can be a bit much sometimes but this was okay. It tasted, well, like lamby bacon 🙂 The fat crunched like regular streaky, and the meat was crispy with a strong saltiness, but there was an underlying tone of fatty lamb.
It definitely conjured up a bacony feeling, but the taste just fell short. I wonder if adding something to the cure to help with the particular clagginess of lamb fat would help?
Definitely a good option, but not a bacon beater. Now to seek out a beef version!