Loin of bacon is a classic and traditional Irish dish. When the lads were growing up, I'd make this every week. It's also a dish that's closely tied to St. Patrick's Day lunch. One of my favourite parts is the vibrant, bright green parsley sauce – it really brings the dish to life. The parsley should be blitzed into the sauce as close to serving as possible, so its beautiful colour stays vivid and doesn't lose its freshness.
Ingredients
Serves 6
1.8kg piece loin bacon, skin on
For the bacon glaze
- 2tbsp English Mustard
- 100g caster sugar
For the parsley sauce
- 500ml milk
- 50g butter
- 50g plain flour
- 40 g parsley chopped
Method
- Place the bacon in a saucepan with a tight-fitting lid, cover with water and simmer for 1 hour.
- Allow the bacon to cool the water for half an hour or so, then drain off the water and place the bacon on a large chopping board.
- Pre heat the oven to 180C.
- Remove the skin from the bacon but leave a little bit of fat and cut the fat into a diamond pattern with sharp knife.
- Place the bacon fat side up in an ovenproof dish, mix the mustard and sugar together and brush over the bacon then bake in the pre-heated oven for 15-20 minutes or until nicely glazed.
To make the parsley sauce
- Melt the butter in a saucepan, add the flour and cook, stirring continuously for 3 minutes to make a roux, gradually whisk in the milk.
- Cook for a further 5 minutes until it thickens.
- Then add the chopped parsley and using a blender stick blitz the sauce until all the parsley in incorbotared and you have a bright green patriotic sauce.
- Season with salt and pepper.
To serve
Slice the bacon and serve with the colcannon and parsley sauce.
Cooking ham for Christmas and other family gatherings
- When we think of ham, it's often tied to Christmas or other big family gatherings. Ham comes from the leg of the pig and can be cooked on or off the bone.
- Ham on the bone always looks impressive, doesn’t it? Cooking ham at Christmas is often a topic of conversation – how do you cook yours?
- I prepare my ham much like I would cook bacon, allowing around 20 minutes per 500g.
- If it’s a particularly large ham, you might need to top up the saucepan with water as it cooks.
- Keep an eye on it, and I always let it cool in the water before removing it. Once it’s cool enough to handle, I take off the skin and score the fat.
- At Christmas, I stud the ham with cloves before brushing on a mustard and sugar glaze.
- Depending on the size of the ham, you may need to double the quantities of the glaze. Finish it off in the oven – a baked ham will usually take about 30 minutes to glaze.
- Just keep an eye on it as it cooks.
