A bacon-centric discussion on Facebook with old friend, fellow foodie and Master of Bacon, Mr. Bob Herz, led my culinary curiosity down the path of uses for curries outside the accepted North American pseudo-Indian norm. Sugar Coma’s Sara Nicholas had successfully integrated curry and dark chocolate for one of her truffle recipes, could the melding of curry and bacon be as tasty?

It’s a big gamble to take on an entire run of bacon, which is where this little experiment comes in. Thursday evening I thawed some un-smoked bacon I had on hand, laid out six strips and rubbed Penzey’s sweet curry on both sides, pressed them flat in to sheets of cling wrap and set them in the fridge.

Sunday afternoon I pulled the bacon from the chill and cool smoked three strips with pecan and three with hickory, then fried each of the test subjects up and placed them on paper towels as usual to drip and cool.

The results: In both the Pecan and the Hickory smoked samples, the flavors of the curry were completely lost. This is probably due to the permeable fat which was holding the most curry flavor melting off in the fry pan.

The experiment is not without merit, however, as the pecan smoked bacon was absolutely incredible. I had never used Pecan wood before this, so it was new territory for me. The soft pecan flavoring on the bacon had an almost buttery, sweet quality and it really compliments the pork well.

in the pan

Back to the drawing board with the curry end of things, but I’m excited to charge ahead with a big batch of pecan smoked bacon to share in the near future.

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