The humble bacon rasher is the mainstay of everything from our morning fry-ups to a hearty carbonara.
And while many of us are used to leaving a few choice bits of this meat sizzling slowly in a frying pan while we crack on with buttering toast or plating up pasta, this cooking method may not actually be getting the best out of our bacon.
This is according to Jeff Baker an award-winning, Michelin-starred chef with more than 30 years of experience in professional kitchens, and a culinary CV that includes cooking up more than a few dishes for no less than the Queen.
According to Jeff – who is executive development chef for Online butchery retailer Farmison & Co – a high heat and short cooking time holds the key to getting crispy, evenly-cooked bacon.
He told the Daily Star, "I find that the best way to cook bacon is on a medium to high heat pan with a small amount of natural fat, searing it on each side for a minute or so. If the bacon is properly dry cured and cut to a nice thickness, it should caramelise on the edges. The fat will then render without dissolving, resulting in delicious flavour.'
And the revelations don’t stop there. Jeff also says we should be serving up our bacon just as it comes, without the usual array of sauces.
He added, "In my opinion, if cooked this way the bacon won’t need any sauce to enhance the taste - it’ll be perfect as it is."
It’s difficult to imagine a world where bacon isn’t slathered with either tomato ketchup or brown sauce or a combination of the two but we’d certainly be willing to give it a try.
Jeff, thankfully, hasn’t mentioned anything about a thick layer of butter as the base for a bacon buttie, so that’s one bacon-related tradition we’ll be clinging onto for the foreseeable future.
Would you bet your bacon on this new way of cooking this meat staple?