Blackened Belly Side Bacon ~ Its Beef!

For those of you who love bacon and beef, here is a recipe that will give you a great deal of delicious delight. We had this at a renown Chicagoland steakhouse and we were amazed. Though, they would not reveal the recipe, I found it. At first, one would think it is bacon, but it is not. Its actually beef!

Corned Beef Bacon

• 1500 grams (3 pounds) beef navel
• 75 grams (2 oz) kosher salt
• 17 grams (4 tbs) granulated sugar
• 4 grams (2 tbs) pink salt
• 4 grams (2 tbs) minced garlic
• 4 grams (2 tbs) pickling spice (includes peppercorns, mustard seed, coriander, red pepper flakes, allspice, mace, cinnamon, bay leaves, cloves and ginger)

Step one: Mix cure and rub beef navel with cure. Refrigerate in a dish which fits the navel snugly. Cover with cling-wrap. Cure for a week, flipping daily.
Step two: Rinse the navel of all of the cure and dry overnight.
Step three: Hot smoke to an internal temperature of 140 degrees.
Step four: On a rack in a sheet pan, cook the navel in an oven preheated to 450 degrees for 30 minutes.

Step five: Reduce temperature to 250 degrees and finish off with a slow cook in the oven on a sheet pan on a rack for an additional 25 - 30 minutes depending on your oven and amount of beef. Or you can blacken on the grill til it is crispy black on the outside. Prior to that, I like to drizzle on organic honey. When blackened to your liking, slice and serve hot!


*I've heard you can take a short cut and just buy a corned beef (beef belly cut), slow cook (slow cooker would work best) as you would normally for a good corned beef outcome but no veggies  and then wrap a few slices of smoked pork bacon around it and blacken it on the grill. The smoked pork bacon wrap gives it the smoked taste since this is the shortcut version.