In the world of quality smoked bacon, few brands can tout the popularity and reputation of Wisconsin-based Nueske's. Their famous smoked bacon offerings are available for shipping anywhere in the States in 2lb, 3lb, and 5lb quantities, with each pound individually vacuum-sealed. Among their varieties, we have the Pepper Coated bacon. Unlike the original smoked variety, there is no option of cut thickness for the peppered slices. They are sliced with a medium-thick cut from a gargantuan slab, resulting in about 15 extra-large clean strips per pound.
Nueske's website describes its bacon as extra-lean, having little to no shrinkage in the pan. This wasn't quite my impression. While the quality of the meat is unquestionably high its makeup is best described as marbled, having a nice mixture of fatty and lean tissue throughout the slab rather than large concentrated sections of either. This becomes especially obvious as the bacon cooks. Though a copious amount of fat is rendered from each strip it is evenly rendered, avoiding deformation of shape. This fat quickly combines into a pool of grease that practically smothers the bacon as it is frying, ensuring an even distribution of heat and contributing to the final flavor in a way that is usually only achieved on second or third batches, or by beginning with previously saved grease. The strips do certainly shrink during this process, but they start out so large and shrink so evenly that you are still left with large, nicely formed cooked strips.
The taste and texture are surprisingly varied and delicate. The marbled structure of the strips give them the fragility of fatty bacon along with the meaty chewiness of lean. The subtle flavors of tellicherry, applewood smoke and spices seem to play on the tongue in turn rather than ever quite mixing into an indistinguishable amalgamation. All are eclipsed by the light buttery flavor lent by the grease bath and the marble that remains.
