Once we bought our own smoker there was no stopping us! Our house-cured, pasture-raised smoked belly belly (aka bacon) uses honey to be GAPS Diet-friendly. Serve these succulent nuggets at the center of a charcuterie and pickle plate, in omelettes, or in a bowl of hot broth with fresh soba noodles and herbs.
Ingredients: beef belly* smoked with applewood and hickory, raw unflitered honey, garlic,* Celtic sea salt, black, white and Sichuan peppercorns,* juniper berries, dried thyme,* curing salt (sodium chloride and sodium nitrite)*, juniper berries, nutmeg,* bay leaf* (* = organic)
Recipe is gluten-free, dairy-free, nightshade-free and GAPS Diet-friendly.
*We used nitrite because there is evidence that a small amount of sodium nitrite is healthier than a large amount of so-called natural vegetable-based nitrate such as celery powder, which can convert to toxic nitrosamines in the body. Check out the article "Save Your Bacon" by Kaayla Daniel on the Weston A. Price Foundation website and "The 'No-Nitrates Added' Hoax" by master charcutier Michael Ruhlman.
