Do you start with the pan hot or cold there? I’ve been experimenting with different ways to cook bacon lately, and the results on that video looked good to me, but some of the details were lacking.
I do it from cold. I don’t really see how it matters much, other than starting with cold will ease it up to temp and get it to render more evenly, or so I assume. Cook’s Illustrated says to place the bacon in a pan with enough cold water to cover over high heat. It doesn’t say anything about preheating the pan or what temp water to start with.
Place the bacon (in strips or cut into pieces) and just enough water to cover it in a skillet over high heat. When the water reaches a boil, lower the heat to medium. Once all of the water has simmered away, turn down the heat to medium-low and continue cooking until the bacon is crisp and well browned. This way, the meat plumps up as it cooks instead of shriveling, leaving the bacon pleasantly crisp, not tough or brittle.
Parchment paper works as well as foil. It can even be crimped as suggested above. You could also lay the bacon on a rack to cook faster but then you have to clean the rack.
At the other end of the spectrum, I sous vide pretty much anything unless there’s a far easier technique. I’ve never made sous vide applesauce, for instance. Peel/core apples, crockpot overnight on low. Boom, applesauce.
I’ve only baked bacon once. About 10 minutes in, I heard a loud splat. Fat hit the heating element, and though I immediately turned off the oven, smoke rolled out so that the fire alarm and smoke detector both went off within a few seconds. (The alarm consisted of a voice calmly repeating, “Fire. Fire. Fire.”) I can’t understand what I did wrong. The oven was set to 400º F, and it wasn’t cheap bacon.
I’ve noticed. 
Start with a cold oven, don’t preheat. 350 is plenty and keep the rack lower.
Heh, Guga has me beat. He’ll sous vide everything.
And he’ll encase and dry-age in pretty much anything, too.
Yep, cool dude. I’d love traveling to Brazil and eating at his restaurant.
Costco bacon: $16 for four pounds. At that price you can have BLTs every day.
Thank you!
So I just tried it on some bacon for lunch. Came out pretty well. I think I just needed about 15 more seconds crisping.
Don’t ever expect times to be exact in recipes. They are not. Use your judgment, like you did. Sometimes times can be WAY off. Every beef stew recipe seems to think it will take 1-1.5 hours to finish, where for me it’s more like 2-2.5 hrs until it is the correct texture. There are lots of variables.
Yeah, that’s the tricky part. I find bacon can go from just not quite crispy enough to way too crispy in a very short period of time.
I recently thought it would be a great marketing move to package bacon uniformly laid out on a large disposable cookie sheet made of some type of heat resistant material (like a parchment type cardboard) and vacuum seal it. Easy to stack flat in the bottom of a fridge in the meat department. Just preheat the oven, remove the vacuum seal, bake, BACON!, and then dispose of the grease tray and all once cooled.
My wife gave up meat a few years ago, but prior to that she absolutely preferred oven bacon. Her preference was about 20-25 minutes at 350, foiled sheet, and depending on fattiness, a parchment paper cover to prevent splatters.
An alternate option, if you want to minimize grease, is to use ‘European style’ bacon, such as Hempler’s, which is IMHO perfect for burger and sandwich applications, as it gives great coverage without the concern of overlapping or weaving strips. And as it’s much (!) leaner, a whole lot less issues with splattering or grease disposal.
Of course, it doesn’t look traditional for a breakfast plate, but…
I buy the extra wide heavy duty aluminum foil just for this purpose. No crimping needed, and the thickness of the foil resists punctures when I use a fork to remove the bacon.
I do squash in the oven using the same foil trick, too.
Bacon in the oven, just made me think it the most heavenly Potpourri. What is the optimum temperature to extract that delicious scent, but make it last as long as possible? While still being edible when time to change out.
Somebody’s been spying on me! Except I use parchment paper.
The bacon here is a bit thinner than the standard American bacon, so I use 200C, which is close to 400F, and it gets pretty crispy. Doesn’t make much of a mess of the oven, especially compared to roasting a chicken.
However, I do make sure to ventilate properly, as I don’t particularly care for the entire place to smell like bacon for the next 2 days.