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| I'm still pursuing that dish I had in China. And just recently, an H-mart opened up nearby. So I of course went to check it out and found this interesting looking marinated pork. It looks like pork belly and it's labelled "Berk Shire Pork". 
I thought I'd give it a shot. Upon opening the container, it smelled quite tasty, but definitely too sweet and not spicy enough to be the dish from China. Oh well - good eats still I'm sure! 
I love scallions, don't you? Closeup of the pork: 
Of course with something like this I just have to use my awesome wok! 
The only problem was that since they were marinated like this, I couldn't tell when the pork was done! 
I think I should have left it to crisp up some more - those browned bits really are the tastiest part! Adding the scallions: 
The scallions kept going up the sides, so finally I moved the (cooked) meat up around the sides and put the scallions in the middle to cook in the marinade: 
Awesomeness: 
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| Who doesn't like a good slice of bacon?
So, I thought I'd do a little review of 3 less commonly used methods for cooking this awesome pork product. I will cook each type and then review it on a 10 point scale for each of the five senses:
- Taste - obviously I'll rate the flavor
- Touch - I will rate each piece on both a "crispy" and "chewy" scale, for those that like each style
- Smell - aroma is important, during both cooking and tasting
- Sight - the appearance of the food is also an important piece
- Sound - an overlooked category in my opinion
First, I picked up some "normal" good quality bacon (not maple sugar cured or thick cut or any of that jazz, just regular for this experiment):
Go Canada?
Method 1: Slow cooked separate from drippings in the oven (200 degrees)
Laid out on a wire rack with a tray underneath to catch the drippings:
Method 2: Slow cooker, low setting
Method 3: Slow pan fry on low heat
Method 3 only took about 20ish minutes:
But it didn't get very crispy (as normal, quick pan-fried bacon usually does):
The flavor was about as impotent as that slice looks.
Pan fry method:
Appearance: 6
Chewiness: 8
Crispiness: 5
Flavor: 3
Aroma: 8
Sound: 8
Surprisingly, the slow pan fry didn't do very well. It had some nice crackling sounds during cooking as one would expect, but the flavor just really wasn't anywhere to be found. And it wasn't as crispy as you would normally get with a pan fry. Maybe it's partially my fault for using a non-stick pan rather than my cast iron pan, but oh well. Lots of households these days use non-stick stuff for everything.
200 degree oven for 2 hours:
Appearance: 7
Chewiness: 8
Crispiness: 7
Flavor: 7
Aroma: 8
Sound: 0
Obviously there was no sound with the oven or slow cooker methods, so those methods start off behind the pan fry already. But the 2 hour oven method came out pretty darn well. Excellent aroma, decent flavor, and a decent amount of both crispiness and chewiness.
200 degree oven for 4 hours:
Appearance: 7
Chewiness: 6
Crispiness: 9
Flavor: 7
Aroma: 9
Sound: 0
As you would expect, the crispiness went up and the chewiness went down. The aroma continued to be great during the 4 hours of oven time, but the flavor didn't improve all that much in my opinion.
Slow cooker on low for 4 hours:
Appearance: 8
Chewiness: 6
Crispiness: 4
Flavor: 7
Aroma: 10
Sound: 0
The slow cooker by far had the best aroma. The flavor was decent as well, but the bacon was almost falling apart. It didn't have much texture to it at all. I was expecting that, but not quite to that degree.
Overall, I don't think any of these methods were as good as a normal pan fry and definitely not as good as a previous method I used, which was in the oven on 200 degrees for a couple hours, but not raised on a wire rack, and with some brown sugar thrown on top. By far that is my best memory of bacon.
After-the-fact update: I had some leftover slow cooker bacon that I ate the next day for breakfast by tossing it in a pan to crisp it up some and it was definitely much improved that way.
Edit: point totals removed, you should each create your own weighting vector and then use a dot product on the raw method data to determine your ideal cooking method (of these particular three).
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