Chef Who Cooked For The Queen Says People Have Been Cooking Bacon Wrong

A chef who has been working in the industry for years and has even cooked for the Queen reckons that most people haven’t got a clue how to cook bacon properly.

OK, so he’s obviously got some pedigree and so might be worth listening to, but how hard is it to actually get cooking bacon wrong?

Most of us just smash it into a pan and then flip it once it starts to look done, before sticking it on some bread with your choice of sauce.

Incidentally, if you’re not choosing brown sauce, you want to have a long hard look at yourself.

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Still, Jeff Baker – the Executive Development Chef at Farmison & Co. – believes there’s more to it than just flinging it into a pan to cure your Sunday morning hangover.

He thinks the perfect bacon should be crispy as anything, which is something that anyone who isn’t cooking the meat in a hot frying pan is getting badly wrong.

You see, if you aren’t using a hot enough pan the bacon isn’t going to caramelise and the fat isn’t going to behave as it would in a hotter pan, so his first tip is to get some heat under it.

Jeff 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.

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“The fat will then render without dissolving, resulting in delicious flavour.”

Hang on for a minute, though.

That’s not even his most controversial bacon-cooking opinion.

He also believes that if the bacon is cooked properly it shouldn’t actually need any condiments putting on it at all.

No sauce whatsoever.

That means that he is completely outside of the ketchup vs HP Sauce debate.

Jeff continued: “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."

Of course, he’s a professional chef, so he’s probably not sitting around eating bacon on its own.

Still, a drizzle of brown sauce is what holds the humble bacon butty together, isn’t it?

Maybe we can just take his advice about the frying pan instead?