As I was surfing the internet the other day, I found an idea that interested me. Or I should say, I found many ideas that interested me, but one of them I decided to try--cooking bacon in the oven. This seemed like a simple and appealing idea. No more standing over the stove dodging grease splatters or no more overcooking it in the microwave.
As often happens when I'm on the computer, one place leads to another which leads to another and before I know it, I now want to bake bacon instead of figuring out how to fix my washer. Anyway, the point of that is I don't have a credit for the baking idea or remember exactly what the favorite technique was. What I do remember is that it works better with cold bacon and a cold starting oven and should take 15-20 minutes. Also, you should use a pan with sides, so the grease won't run down into the oven.
So, I put bacon slices on my baking pan with sides, put it into the cold oven and set the temperature for 350˚ F. I checked it at 15 minutes and then again at 19 minutes where I found golden, crisp, long strips of bacon. Simple and delicious.
This is definitely something I will use in the future. The bacon can be baking while I am preparing another part of the meal, or if I have the oven on for something else, I can bake some bacon to be frozen for later use. But the most important part of this experiment is that I got to do a post with the titles, Makin' Bacon and Bakin' Bacon. Once again, I amuse myself.
One of my mom's old cookbooks (c. 1957) has this same tip in it, with one change, place the strips of bacon on a cookie rack inside the baking pan. The bacon sits above any grease this way. I do this when we're having a big breakfast or brunch or brunch at our house. It frees up the stove (and me) for other things. What I really like about it, is no splatters on the stove top to clean up after.
ReplyDeleteI think if you bake it on the cooling rack, you don't have to worry about the bacon continuing to cook in the grease. Also, not having to clean up splatters on the stove is another good reason to bake bacon.
ReplyDeleteI used to bake our bacon until somebody gave me that plastic thing that goes in a microwave for bacon. It has a bowl of the bottom for grease and it's usually full when all bacon is cooked!! I'm glad we don't eat all of this grease, at least slightly healthier, right?:)
ReplyDeleteI like crispy bacon and it seems when I do it in the microwave, I always cook it too long. Bacon definitely has a lot of grease. When I was young that was what my mother used to cook everything. Not too healthy, but boy, did things taste good.
ReplyDeleteMakin' bacon...I thought for a moment that maybe you'd acquired a pig in addition to the cats...but I like the bakin' bacon idea. In fact I'm going to be takin' your bakin' bacon idea (honest - I'm not fakin').
ReplyDeleteYou're not fakin' You're too clever. :)
DeleteClever or silly? Do clever people really spend time thinkin' up rhymes for makin' and bakin'?!
Deletehow easy is it to clean the pan? Which one do you recommend with a cookie rack or without? I hate the smell of frying baking hanging around the house..
ReplyDeleteI didn't have any problem cleaning my pan. However, it would have been even easier if I had lined it with foil first. You could use a rack to bake it on, but I find those hard to clean. You just need to remove the bacon from the pan when it's done so it doesn't continue to cook in the grease.
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