It’s a few weeks before Christmas and already you find yourself in a panic. You’ve committed to cooking for 10 on the big day, with a chance that another second-cousin once removed and her boyfriend might pop around too. What on Earth were you thinking of? You’ve only tried to cook Christmas dinner once before and it didn’t end up so well back then (well, you were a student, and that was almost 10 years ago, and your cooking skills have improved significantly since then, but still…this is CHRISTMAS DINNER for goodness sake!).

But it’s too late to back out now. Everyone’s looking forward to cramming around the dinner table at yours. They’ll bring the bottles, your job is simply to put on a feast fit for a king. No pressure.

Here’s the good news – we’ve got your back! Forget frantic note taking in front of a celebrity cookery programme a week before Christmas, all you need to know about preparing the ultimate feast is right here, bullet pointed, straight-forward and allowing for sanity checks at various points in the process. So sit back, press print, read and relax. You’ll be fine. Dinner will be a hit. Aunty Pam will claim her turkey was always better but everyone else will know that yours is the best. And that bacon on top of the turkey…how delicious! What was it called again? spoiltpig?…

First off, before we start our step-by-step guide, let’s give you an overview of Turkey sizes and cooking times.

If you’re cooking for more than 15 people you’re going to need two birds. And also – what were you thinking?!

To test, use a digital thermometer. When cooked, turkey thighs should read 80^oC, breasts 75^oC. Be sure to check in a couple of places around the turkey. All juices should run clear.

Where do I start?

You start the day before. Prep ahead so you can give yourself high-fives on Christmas Day.

• POTATOES: Peel them, cut them into ‘roast potato’ size pieces and par boil (ie in boiling water for around 10mins). When tender, drain them, let them cool, cover in foil and leave in the fridge.
• PARSNIPS: Peel them, cut them lengthways and halve and parboil for 3mins.
• CARROTS AND SPROUTS: Peel these and chop up where necessary. Put them in a large pan of cold water and leave with a lid on until tomorrow.
• STUFFING: Regardless of whether you’ve made your own or gone down the route of a packet, this can be rolled into balls and put on a tray ready to go into the oven tomorrow.
• STOCK (for gravy): Remove the giblets from your turkey and place into a big stockpot. Add halved white onions, carrots, celery, garlic cloves, black peppercorns and 2 bay leaves. Cover with cold water and slowly bring to the boil, before simmering for 30mins skimming off any scum as it rises to the top. Remove the veg and giblets and keep the stock in a bowl to one side for tomorrow’s gravy.

This plan is assuming you’ll all be eating early afternoon (2ish) and serving a feast for 10 hungry mouths.

4.00am

Get woken up by the kids. Manic unwrapping of Christmas stockings ensues, bleary eyed parents stumble towards the kettle for coffee.

5.00am

Kids are fully on a sugar rush. Parents are on coffee number 4. Yes, it is too early to crack open the fizz.

8.00am

You’ve been up for hours but caffeine is keeping you going. Kids are still rushing on sugar. Radio is blasting Christmas hits of yore. Now is the time to take the turkey out of the fridge. Leave the turkey to reach room temperature.

8.30am

Hurrah! Open that fizz.

9.00am

Preheat the oven as per our table above. Put the turkey in an almighty roasting tin. Rub the entire bird generously with slightly salted butter (you’ll probably do the best part of a packet of Lurpak spreadable if we’re honest). Now get out your packs of spoiltpig streaky bacon. Cover every part of the turkey (even legs) with the rashers of bacon, leaving no part of the turkey skin exposed. 3 packets should do the trick, but you may need more spoiltpig for larger birds.

9.30am

Cover the turkey loosely with foil and put the turkey in the oven. Top up your glass of fizz and alternate between that and your mug of coffee.

9.50am

Turn the heat of the oven down to 160^oC

10.20am

Time for the turkey baster! Get the turkey juices and baste that bird well so that it stays succulent and you don’t end up eating a really dry turkey come 2pm.

10.50am

Baste again.

11.00am

Tell the kids that there is no breakfast and that they should just keep eating their chocolate selection box instead. Hand them the Christmas crackers and get them to ‘help’ Aunty Pam and Uncle Kev lay the table ready for the feast (even though it’s a few hours off yet). Toast kids being out of your hair with a sip of fizz.

11.20am

Baste the turkey.

11.50am

Baste the turkey.

12.20pm

Baste the turkey. Chuck away that foil – it’s no longer needed! Remove the bacon from the top of the turkey and put on a serving platter. It’s all about crisping up that turkey now. Back in the oven it goes. As for the spoiltpig bacon – that can now be distributed among the hungry masses to pick on, or can be saved and crumbled into the Brussel sprouts should you wish.

12.30pm

Grab your jar of Goose Fat and blob it out into the tray you’re going to do the roast potatoes in. Put in the oven so that the fat starts to melt.

12.40pm

Remove the tray of hot fat from the oven and throw your par boiled potatoes in. Give them a good mix so that they’re properly covered in the melted goose fat. Now put them in the oven.

1.15pm

Hurrah! The turkey can come out of the oven! Find a spot in the kitchen where you can leave the turkey, covered loosely in foil with a tea towel on top, so it can rest well. Good luck finding that spot in the kitchen though, extra points for not burning yourself (or anyone else) in the process. More fizz.

1.25pm

Brush the parsnips with light olive oil or vegetable oil, put on a baking tray and pop in the oven. At this point, put your stuffing balls into the oven too. Nearly there…

1.30pm

Fill the kettle and turn it on.

1.30pm

Get those cocktail sausages! Wrap yummy rashers of spoiltpig bacon around each sausage, put them in a tray and in the oven.

1.35pm

Put the sprouts and carrots on to boil.

1.40pm

Gravy time. Put your turkey onto a carving plate. Skim the oil and fat from the juices left in the turkey roasting tray and then put the tray on the hob over a low heat. With a wooden spoon gently stir in 1tbsp of flour and mix to form a paste. Allow to gently cook off for 2mins. Then add the stock you made yesterday (high fives you!). Stir gently, season to taste and then allow to reduce to a consistency of your liking. Of course, if you find that you’re struggling we’re a total advocate of gravy granules as a back up!

1.55pm

Remove everything from the oven – all should be cooked. Have a sip of fizz. Drain the sprouts and carrots. Have another sip of fizz. Put all into various heated dishes and put on the beautifully laid Christmas table.

2.00pm

Everyone is sat at the table as you place the ultimate Christmas Turkey on the table. People clap, cheer and quite frankly, you deserve it. Immediately hand the carving utensils to another adult person, sit down and relax. Happy Christmas!

In a day and age of diet fads, it’s all too easy to dismiss those who go ‘gluten free’ as simply those on a health kick. And whilst that’s perhaps true of the majority of the 8.5million people in the UK who are now gluten free, this diet is not a choice, but a real necessity for 1% of the population who suffer with coeliac disease.

Coeliacs suffer when their immune systems react to gluten, affecting the lining of the gut and causing horrible symptoms from bloating to diarrhoea and nausea.

So what is gluten? It’s a protein, naturally occurring in rye, barley and wheat which lends itself to giving foods a chewy texture and aides in the baking process.

The Gluten Free way…

The good news is that a gluten free diet is far from a diet of doom and gloom. For a start, our award winning, RSPCA Assured, responsibly farmed bacon can happily be consumed – hurrah! But there are also many naturally gluten-free foods such as organic meat, fish, fruit and vegetables, rice, potatoes and lentils to cook with. Equally, us lucky consumers are able to benefit from an ever-growing set of ‘free from’ foods in supermarkets.

Lots of people attempting to go gluten free do so as a way of trying to combat general bloating or lethargy, and there’s no doubt that a gluten free diet can be a way to lose weight healthily without starving yourself. However, if not restricted to a gluten free diet because of Coeliacs disease, gluten remains an important part of anyone’s diet. There are health benefits to keeping small and regular amounts of gluten in your daily diet. Whole grains in particular are known to be highly beneficial for the health of your heart. Equally a total avoidance of gluten is known to significantly increase the risk of diabetes, by as much as 13%.

Is it ‘Caveman’?

There tends to be a confusion between a Paleo diet and that of a gluten free diet also. Whilst going ‘gluten free’ is a necessity for some, the idea behind the Paleo diet is that one eats food true to our origins as hunter-gatherer folk (hence the nickname the ‘Caveman’ diet). Food groups excluded therefore include the likes of dairy (no cheese! Cor…) grains, legumes or any type of processed food. This leaves the Paleo follower with an extremely high protein, low carb diet involving a moderately high omega 3 & 6 fat intake. In order to keep it ‘Caveman’, foods should be organic, meats outdoor bred/reared (spoiltpig!) and not contain unnatural chemicals (did we mention spoiltpig yet?).

A diet regime?

Where Paleo often gets confused with gluten free is because of the affect it can have on the health of your guts. As a diet, Paleo is a great way to repair any damage you may have in your gut (IBS, bloating etc) and introduces more healthy bacteria back into your gut to help your body process the good stuff and keep all the bad bacteria, fats etc flowing out of your system. So it’s great for healthy guts, as well as weight management and general feelings of wellbeing/energy levels.

However, whilst Paleo can kick start your weight loss regime, in the longer term it’s not so great. The natural calorie content of such a diet is high. If anything, it can become easier to gain weight in the longer term as you find yourself snacking heavily on cashew nuts and the like as a way of curbing chocolate cravings. But mainly, the issue with the Paleo diet is that it’s really, really tricky to maintain long term. If you enjoy a healthy social life and a real variety at mealtimes then this probably isn’t for you. Of course, everyone is individual and what works for one person might not be the answer for the next, BUT what’s important is that Paleo and Gluten Free are two wholly separate ‘diets’. One a necessity and the other more a change of lifestyle.

Hopefully that’s cleared up some myths/confusions around these diets. Whether you’re someone conforming to a gluten free diet for medical reasons or someone simply trying to cut down on gluten intake, look no further! Our recipe pages are full of inspiration for those on a gluten free diet. Sweet or savoury, breakfast, lunch or dinner, we have choices aplenty. Yay! Yummy bacon for tea it shall be!

“The critical period in matrimony is breakfast time.”
– Sir Alan Patrick Herbert, English journalist and writer [1890-1971]

“When you wake up in the morning, Pooh,” said Piglet at last, “what’s the first thing you say to yourself?”
“What’s for breakfast?” said Pooh. “What do you say, Piglet?”
“I say, I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?” said Piglet.
Pooh nodded thoughtfully. “It’s the same thing,” he said.”
― A.A. Milne

***

The full English, a ‘fry-up’, a cooked breakfast or the full Monty. Whatever you call it, the full English breakfast is truly one of champions. It is a personal meal, a social occasion or one to sit and peruse the papers with, a hardy feast to set you up for a busy day or a meal to enjoy leisurely at the weekend. Today it transcends class, being served in ‘greasy spoons’ across the country and in Michelin starred restaurants. It’s a meal taken seriously, critically revered, easy to get wrong and quick to satisfy, making the world a happy place again.

But where did it start? Well…

Our traditional fry up is actually hundreds of years old. The English Gentry in the thirteenth century (those of noble birth, genteel, titled families and such) took it upon themselves to be guardians of a traditional English lifestyle, culture and cuisine – self-professed cultural heirs of the Anglo-Saxons.

The gentry were famous for their breakfast feasts, considered to be the most important meal and social occasion of each day. They often served them before long journeys, hunting or the morning-after-the-night-before as a show of their wealth, using quality meat and vegetable produce local to their various estates, cooked with skill to show off the quality of their cooks to guests and residents of the household. And so began the idea of a proper English breakfast.

Skip forward a few centuries and it was in the age of Queen Victoria that the full English breakfast was shaped to that which we recognise now. Aspiring Victorians adopted the gentry’s English Breakfast and made it into an art form, standardising the ingredients to those we love today. Indeed, it was a key feature of Mrs Beeton’s ‘Book of Household Management’ published in 1861 as one of her suggested breakfasts.

In the age of the industrial revolution, the working classes began partaking of a hearty fry-up each morning to prepare themselves for the busy working day of hard manual labour. If you were to choose a ‘peak’ for the consumption of the English breakfast it would be in the 1950s where half the population of Britain would start their day with a traditional breakfast of eggs, bacon and sausages.

So what constitutes a proper, traditional full English breakfast? A topic of some controversy, personal preference and also regionality, the core ingredients are good quality pork sausages, bacon, blood sausage (black pudding), eggs, fried tomato and mushrooms, a slice of fried bread and buttered toast. All washed down with a cuppa (English breakfast tea if you’re being proper but it’s acceptable to drink coffee in these instances too).

There is controversy to the list of ingredients though. Where are the hash browns I hear you cry? They’re considered to be an addition of our American cousins and as such not ‘traditional’. What about the baked beans? Well, these fall under the category of personal preference but are not offensive on the breakfast plate. Chips? Virtual blasphemy. Fried, scrambled or poached eggs are all acceptable ways to cook this crucial part of the breakfast plate.

Regionality

Regional variations include grilled oatcakes in place of fried bread in the North Midlands, hog’s pudding and potato cakes in a traditional Cornish breakfast, potato farls, white pudding and soda bread in some parts of Ireland, cockles and laverbread in Wales and up in the northern reaches of Scotland, haggis and tattie scones are frequent additions to the cooked breakfast.

Today the cooked full English breakfast is one of the most recognised British dishes globally. A whopping fifth of Brits abroad will chow down on a full English when on their holidays. As Michelin starred chef Tom Kerridge proudly says “Done properly, the full English breakfast is one of the best dishes in the world.”

How to cook the perfect full English breakfast?

It is almost impossible to say given the number of personal preferences involved, but here is how we at spoiltpig HQ cook ours – minimal stress, maximum deliciousness!

For each person allow roughly:
• 2 quality, high meat content RSPCA assured pork sausages
• 3 rashers of dry cured spoiltpig smoked back bacon
• 2 large flat mushroom
• 1 large ripe tomato (cut in half)
• 1 generous slice of black pudding
• 2 large free range eggs
• 1 slice of doorstop farmhouse white bread for toasting

Sausages will take the longest time to cook so start with these first. On a griddle pan, over a medium-low heat, melt a small amount of butter before adding your sausages. These will need to be turned occasionally over a 20min period until they’re a lovely golden colour on all sides. The second 10mins of cooking time increase the heat a touch as you will need to add the other ingredients to this pan.

So to the other ingredients…

Place the rashers of spoiltpig bacon onto the griddle pan and fry according to preference (we like to get it quite crispy so allow 4mins each side). When you’re happy with the crispiness of your bacon you can transfer the rashers to a hot plate to keep warm in the oven while the remaining ingredients cook.

Trim to stalk of the mushrooms to sit flat with the underside. Season each mushroom well and add a little extra butter to the griddle pan. Place the mushrooms upside down (stalk side facing you) on the pan and cook for a couple of minutes before turning over to cook for a further 5mins. You’ll need to keep an eye on the mushrooms because cooking for too long a time can make them soggy (which isn’t a particularly pleasant!). Now to consider the tomato. Cut your ripe tomato in half, season it well and place with the cut side down onto the pan. Resist moving it around! Let the tomato cook for a couple of minutes before turning over and cooking for a further 3 minutes on the other side.

Often people are daunted by cooking black pudding and we’re not quite sure why. It’s possibly one of the easiest components of the humble fry up. Simply cook each side (skin removed) for 2 minutes on each side until crisp. Et voila!

Nearly there…

The final steps. Put your thick farmhouse bread in the toaster or under the grill and while that’s toasting away, crack on with the eggs (see what I did there?!). Fried is the winner here so we crack our yummy free range eggs straight into the hot pan and don’t touch them for a good 40 seconds. From here on it’s all about basting the egg with a touch more butter added to the pan so that it cooks on the top to your liking. Season during the ‘basting’ time and then gently remove it from the pan with a fish slice (don’t break the yolk! That truly is disaster!)

Put all your ingredients on a plate. Butter the toast with slightly salted butter, add a squeeze of brown or tomato sauce according to preference and then eat it all up, happy in the knowledge that your hearty feast is of historical importance and will set you up nicely for the day ahead.

NB: Always cook more than suggested. You’ll want to go back for seconds!

Also – should you prefer just a quick cheeky bacon sandwich, have a look at our spoiltpig Ultimate Bacon Sandwich recipe…

No, we’re not talking about the art of going to see The Cure live in a darkened gig venue, nor are we suggesting cures for world peace. We are of course talking about the fine, and ancient art of curing food. Namely, our spoiltpig outdoor bred, British, RSPCA Assured, raised without antibiotics pork to make delicious dry cured back and streaky bacon.

An Art

And an ancient art it truly is. Sumerians as far back as 3000 BC had amongst other things, salted dried meat as a staple part of their diet. Indeed, whilst we are lucky enough to live in a day and age full of refrigerators, freezers and kitchen gadgets galore, back in ye olden days, salt was the main source of food preservation. Greeks began mass-producing salt in ‘salt gardens’ around 900 BC specifically to supply the demand for salt curing and smoking of meats and fish. A few hundred years later the Romans cottoned on to this method of preservation and so, over the years, curing became an established process amongst different cultures and societies.

Curing had most definitely evolved into an art rather than just a science by the early 1800s. Move forward 100 years, and in the early twentieth century we started to understand the role salt plays not only in preservation of, but also the colour and flavouring of foods.

The spoiltpig dry cure

Ultimately, the lesson is that dry curing makes our bacon taste delicious! At spoiltpig the dry curing technique involves a unique mixture of dry sea salt, nitrite and Vitamin C, which we then lovingly massage into the loins and bellies of our pork. Not wanting to detract too much from the natural flavour of our outdoor bred meat, we keep salt levels low and then allow to cure for 2-3 weeks before slicing it up for you lucky people to cook up and enjoy.

So go forth, eat our award winning dry cured bacon and feel content in the knowledge that you are eating something that has undergone a process as ancient as the Sumerians. In your modern kitchen. Listening to The Cure. It may not cure world peace but it’ll make the world a happier place for a few minutes. Stop reading now.

Fact 1: Bacon. Food of the Gods. We all know that. spoiltpig bacon. Heavenly.
Fact 2: There are bazillions of ways to cook bacon. It’s versatile AND tasty. A dream and delight of an ingredient to get cooking with.

Bacon is often a personal experience. Do you like yours crispy or slightly ‘wet’? Do you like it in a tasty sandwich or as a topping to a salad? And of course, the age-old question of red vs brown sauce… This guide is just that, a list of the best options (unusual and obvious) you can employ to cook up that pack of spoiltpig streaky or back bacon.

Read, decide, cook, eat, repeat!

Fried (our personal favourite):
Use a griddle pan for optimum frying joy (but a standard frying pan will suffice if you’re not stocked up with a griddle pan). This way you tend not to lose too much of the fat which ultimately gives your bacon so much of its flavour. Pre-heat the griddle pan for 4-5mins first ensuring it’s nice and hot before you add the bacon (note: many cooks suggest placing bacon into a cold pan to stop it curling up too much, but our spoiltpig bacon is such that it won’t water and curl up anyway). Make sure each rasher has its own cosy spot in the pan to crisp up nicely. While it’s cooking, resist the temptation to move it around the pan, be patient and wait for the fat to turn a nice crisp golden colour before turning to cook the other side. Then cook to your liking.

Deep Fat Fry:
No doubt a favourite of our American cousins but definitely a method employed by many professionals. 5 or 6 strips of streaky bacon (works less well with back bacon) in a deep fat fryer for 5 minutes will give you curly and chewy bacon.

Oven:
It’s not as straight forward as just cooking in the oven. There are 4 different ways you can cook up a bacon feast in the humble oven. Most require a temperature of Gas Mark 6 / 200oC unless otherwise stated. Ready? Here you go:

1. Cooling Rack: Line a baking tray with aluminium foil and place a cooling rack over the top of it. Lay the rashers of spoiltpig bacon on top of the rack and bake in the oven for 20-30mins until you’ve achieved your preferred crisp. Remove from oven and place on a plate with kitchen paper for a couple of minutes before serving.

2. Baking Paper: Line a baking tray with baking paper. Lay your rashers of bacon directly onto the baking paper and cook for 15mins before checking for crisp-factor. This method makes the bacon cook quicker so check regularly to avoid over cooking/burning.

3. No mess, straight on baking tray: Preferred by the masses but requiring the most ‘cleaning up’. Lay the rashers of spoiltpig directly onto the baking tray, cook and check every 10mins until cooked to your liking.

4. Cold Oven: Lay the bacon onto a baking tray lined with aluminium foil and place into a cold oven. Wait for the temperature to reach 180oC/gas mark 4 and then turn the bacon over before cooking for precisely 4 more minutes.

Waffle Maker:
When you say it, one can’t help but think ‘Waffle Maker? Are you mad?’ But when you actually think about it, it does kind of make sense. Preheat the waffle maker, cut the rashers of bacon in ½ and place 2 halves into each waffle square. Close the waffle maker and only open after 4mins to check on how well cooked it is. Drain it on kitchen paper when you take it out of the waffle maker. Et voila!

Wok ‘n’ Roll:
Yep, bacon can be cooked in wok too! No longer do you need to keep your wok for sole ‘stir fry’ use. Essentially this is the same as when using a frying pan, but this time you put the rashers of bacon into a cold wok over a medium heat. Be sure to arrange the rashers in a circular motion around the sides of the wok so that they all cook evenly (remember heat disperses differently in a wok!). Only start to manoeuvre the bacon around when the rashers in the centre of the wok start to cook. At this point swap the bacon from the centre of the wok to the sides and shift all round to ensure even cooking of rashers.

Microwave:
Blasphemous! Well, no not really. This is the best way to cook up your bacon when you’re in dire, urgent, crisis need of a bacon sandwich in less than 5 minutes. For the full method see our article dedicated to this unusual art, but trust us, bacon + kitchen paper + microwaveable bowl upside down + 3mins + full power + 800w microwave oven = crispy deliciousness.

BBQ:
And finally, the sun is shining (or not), it’s summertime, you’re determined to BBQ and so dagnamit BBQ you shall! But why limit yourself to chicken, sausages and burgers? Our spoiltpig bacon loves a bit of BBQ action. This method is really for back bacon as opposed to streaky though… Lay aluminium foil across the grill of the BBQ (obviously before the charcoal starts to heat up!) and fold the edges up to stop grease from spilling over to the coals. Place your rashers on the foil with a fair bit of space between each rasher and then just keep an eye on it. Roughly every 5mins you should turn the bacon (using tongs) until you’re happy with its cooked-ness. Essentially the bacon is ready when you achieve that glorious golden brown colouration on the fat.

With all those options open to you there really is no excuse not to get your spoiltpig bacon cooking. So go forth and cook bacon!

Microwaved bacon?  Tut tut.  But just picture the scene…  You’re in the kitchen. You have your packet of delicious spoiltpig bacon ready to cook up a tasty bacon sandwich. Perhaps you turn to your grill? Perhaps to the frying pan? But the thing is, you NEED your bacon sandwich urgently. Aunty Pam is visiting in 15 minutes and you don’t have enough bacon to be able to offer her a sandwich too. Crisis. What do you do? Might we suggest you cast a lingering glance at your microwave…

No, that wasn’t a typo. The microwave has been hailed as the way to cook perfect bacon and “revolutionise your kitchen” quotes the Michelin starred chef Marco Pierre White, who has been an advocate of microwaved bacon for the best part of two decades.

Righto Mr Pierre White, how can this possibly be better than traditional methods of cooking up a rasher of tasty bacon? The benefits of microwaved bacon are three fold, using a microwave can save on the washing up; gives crispy bacon in a mere few minutes; cooks bacon in such a way that the grease is minimalised (Ooo – healthier bacon!).

The Microwave Method…

Still to be convinced? There’s a technique to the microwave method, get it right and perhaps you might be a convert. Here’s how to master crispy spoiltpig microwaved bacon:

1. Open your packet of spoiltpig bacon (streaky or back, smoked or unsmoked according to preference)
2. Place a microwaveable dish/bowl upside down and cover with 3 layers of kitchen paper
3. Lay the rashers of tasty spoiltpig atop the kitchen paper, ensuring there are no overlaps (this will affect the crispiness of the bacon)
4. Cover the bacon with one layer of kitchen paper and place the whole upside down dish/bowl onto a microwaveable plate
5. Shove it in the microwave! 3mins full power in an 800w microwave should do the trick
6. When you hear the ting gently lift the top layer of kitchen paper to check that the bacon is crisped to your liking – if not, pop it back in for 30sec bursts until you’re happy with the crisp on your spoiltpig
7. Place your bacon between 2 slices of finest white farmhouse doorstop bread, pre-buttered, adding a dash of ketchup or brown sauce to taste, then EAT (before Aunty Pam turns up!)

Need a recipe for the ultimate bacon sandwich?  Look no further…

Smoked vs unsmoked; back vs streaky; brown sauce vs tomato ketchup…there are a plethora of considerations when making the best bacon sandwich (mainly led by personal preference). But ultimately there is no right or wrong. As long as you know how to get the most from your outdoor bred, RSPCA Assured pork you’re guaranteed to create the most delicious and loved sandwiches of the British public – the bacon sandwich.

Pig farming in the UK is a growing industry and spoiltpig RSPCA Assured, outdoor bred, raised without antibiotics pork is just the ticket for your bacon sandwich occasion.

A Science

So loved in fact is the bacon sandwich that experts at Leeds University invested time in working out the science behind the ideal sandwich, discovering that the secret lay in just how crispy and crunchy the bacon was. The multi-sensory experience of the bacon sandwich was deemed crucial to the consumer’s pleasure (texture, smell and the sound of the crunch!). They even came up with a scientific formula (it’s long, complex and quite frankly we don’t quite get it). But there are some intrinsic ways we can help you enjoy your spoiltpig British, outdoor bred bacon to the max.

Ideal Cuts

Starting with which cut of bacon to choose – spoiltpig dry cured back bacon or dry cured streaky bacon? The answer is – why limit yourself to one? Many celebrated chefs opt for a mixture of the both and we agree! The best way to cook our spoiltpig dry cured bacon of either cut is, we believe, using a griddle pan. This way you tend not to lose too much of the fat which ultimately gives your sandwich or your hearty fry-up so much of it’s flavour. Pre-heat the griddle pan for 4-5mins first ensuring it’s nice and hot before you add the bacon. Make sure each rasher has it’s own cosy spot in the pan to crisp up nicely. And while it’s cooking resist the temptation to move it around the pan, be patient and wait for the fat to turn a nice crisp golden colour before turning to cook the other side. Then cook to your liking.

White or Brown?

Which bread you opt for is personal preference but here we like to go for a nice 1-2cm thick slice of white farmhouse bread. Butter it up and we reckon the perfect sandwich should have a 2:1 ratio of streaky bacon to back bacon.

Not that you’re likely to want to wait, but make sure you scoff it immediately. Then perhaps go back for bacon sandwich number 2…