• How to make poor quality bacon

    From Ed P@21:1/5 to All on Wed May 14 12:30:16 2025
    For years, we made bacon in a frying pan. Always good, crispy and even
    had fat to cook other things in.

    Recent years, found that the oven is great too. Parchment paper on a
    pan that holds eight slices works very well. Crispy and tasty.

    Decided to try a quick shortcut I've read about often. Microwave.

    Put two slices on a paper towel, folded it over to avoid splatter, put
    the plate in the MW for three minutes. It was cooked, the ends were
    crispy but the middle a bit less so. Flavor? Seems most of that was
    missing. The crispness was not the same either, texture off.

    Won't ever try that shortcut again.

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  • From ItsJoanNotJoAnn@21:1/5 to Ed P on Wed May 14 22:04:04 2025
    On Wed, 14 May 2025 16:30:16 +0000, Ed P wrote:

    For years, we made bacon in a frying pan. Always good, crispy and even
    had fat to cook other things in.

    Recent years, found that the oven is great too. Parchment paper on a
    pan that holds eight slices works very well. Crispy and tasty.

    Decided to try a quick shortcut I've read about often. Microwave.

    Put two slices on a paper towel, folded it over to avoid splatter, put
    the plate in the MW for three minutes. It was cooked, the ends were
    crispy but the middle a bit less so. Flavor? Seems most of that was missing. The crispness was not the same either, texture off.

    Won't ever try that shortcut again.


    About the only time I put bacon in the microwave is to
    give it a much crisper texture without burning it. It
    works well for steakhouse potato salad as the bacon
    needs to be quite, quite crispy. It doesn't take long
    either or you can end up with burnt bacon.

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  • From Jill McQuown@21:1/5 to Ed P on Wed May 14 17:37:59 2025
    On 5/14/2025 12:30 PM, Ed P wrote:
    For years, we made bacon in a frying pan.  Always good, crispy and even
    had fat to cook other things in.

    Recent years, found that the oven is great too.  Parchment paper on a
    pan that holds eight slices works very well.  Crispy and tasty.

    Decided to try a quick shortcut I've read about often.  Microwave.

    Put two slices on a paper towel, folded it over to avoid splatter, put
    the plate in the MW for three minutes.  It was cooked, the ends were
    crispy but the middle a bit less so.  Flavor?  Seems most of that was missing.  The crispness was not the same either, texture off.

    Won't ever try that shortcut again.

    When I bought my first microwave (circa 1980), I also bought a slanted microwave-safe drip pan made specifically for cooking bacon. It was
    slanted so the bacon grease would collect at one end of the pan. You
    did have to turn the bacon at least once during cooking, and yes, cover
    it with a paper towel to prevent splatters, but IIRC it came out nice
    and crisp all the way through. That microwave and the bacon pan are
    long gone.

    I'll stick with the baked bacon method. I do mine on a slotted broiler
    pan that allows the grease to drain off underneath. I don't cook with
    bacon fat but if I did I could pour the collected grease into a jar from
    the pan below. As it is, I line it with foil, crumple it up and toss
    it. Very minimal cleanup required.

    Jill

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