Binging with Babish: Breakfast from Howl's Moving Castle
Hey, what's up guys?
Welcome back to Binging with Babish,
where this week we're finally taking a look at food
from a Miyazaki movie.
Something like bacon and eggs might seem
like a very simple place to start,
but it's the perfect excuse to learn
how to make our own bacon from scratch.
First thing we gotta do is cut a big old piece
of pork belly down to size.
And by down to size, I mean whatever will fit
in your intended marination vessel.
Then we need to remove the skin.
Just try to get the knife under a corner
of the belly's skin and peel back from there.
Once the skin has been summarily removed,
it's time to talk about a cure for our belly.
And no, I don't mean Pepto-Bismol.
Into a large bowl goes four and a half teaspoons
of kosher salt, four and a half teaspoons
of coarsely ground black pepper,
six packed tablespoons of dark brown sugar,
and three quarters of one cup of distilled water.
Emphasis on the distilled part.
Last but not least, a teaspoon of Prague powder number one,
or pink curing salt.
This is gonna help give the meat
its distinct flavor, color, and texture.
Once you have tiny whisked these ingredients
to a state of dissolution,
into a gallon-sized zip-top bag they go with
are approximately three pounds of pork belly.
Squeeze as much air out of the bag as possible
before sealing and place into a nice high-walled container
like this casserole, which will help prevent
cross-contamination during its three to five day stint
in the fridge, during which time we're going
to give it a flip once every day to make sure
that it is evenly exposed to the cure.
This guy's been going for five days,
and not only is it pinker in color,
it's firmer in texture, and so my boy
is ready to get smoked.
Normally I would head out to my buddy Steve's place
to use his smoker, but I'm gonna try using
this stovetop smoker, into which I'm depositing
about two tablespoons each of apple and cherry wood.
On top of that goes the drip plate,
on top of that goes the smoking rack,
and on top of that goes the pork belly,
which I'm going to naively try and cover
with the included smoker cover thing,
place on a burner over medium heat,
and immediately replace with aluminum foil,
cause this thing holds in smoke about as good
as a college freshman after taking his first bong rip.
I'm also gonna probe the belly,
cause I wanna smoke it like that, see there's smoke.
I wanna smoke it to an internal temperature,
but look, there's more smoke, of about 150 degrees
Fahrenheit, and since these stovetop smokers
can only sustainably smoke for about 30 to 45 minutes,
we're gonna finish it off in a 225 degree
Fahrenheit oven for about another hour
until it reaches the desired temperature,
at which point we are going to unwrap it
and chill it completely, because what we essentially
have here is bacon, a big ol' slab of bacon,
waiting, begging to be sliced,
and pork belly is a lot easier to slice
when it's nice and chilled.
So once this guy's had the chance to hang out
in the fridge for at least four hours,
out it goes, and into it we cut with a long, thin knife.
And now, for the first time in your life,
you can decide the very thickness of your bacon,
unless, of course, you've ever been
to the deli in Whole Foods.
But much like bread, bacon just tastes
a whole lot better when you made it yourself.
Be sure to hang on to all these scraps and end pieces,
they're gonna be perfect for your next carbonara.
Select the three or four most symmetrical
and photogenic slices of bacon,
and get ready for the main event.
It looks like Howell was using a carbon steel skillet,
but the only one I have is too small for the job,
so we're going with cast iron.
And this is actually pretty thick bacon,
so I'm cooking it over medium-low flame
so all the fat renders out and it doesn't burn.
Once all the fat renders out and the bacon is mostly cooked,
into the frying pan go the eggs.
The pan's gonna be pretty hot, but that's okay,
we want the eggs to develop that nice brown crust
around the edges.
If the edges are browning too quickly
and the whites are not setting fast enough for your liking,
go ahead and kill the heat and cover the pan.
And in one to two minutes,
you'll have perfectly cooked sunny-side up eggs.
Everything might seem a little heavily soaked
in bacon grease, but remember that the grease
was practically dripping off the plate in the movie.
Our eggs are nice and properly cooked,
let's try the bacon, it is fabulous.
I simply cannot oversell the fabulousness of homemade bacon,
it's something you owe to yourself to try.
And with the simple additions of bread, cheese,
a little bit of salt and pepper,
we've got a minimalist but exquisite breakfast
that is literally the first meal that I'm having
at the end of my diet.
So you bet your ass it ended up in the clean plate club.
The only thing that could have possibly made it better
would have been an anthropomorphic fire
voiced by Billy Crystal eating up all my eggshells,
but I will settle for homemade bacon.