While butchering out a lovely young lamb (about eight months in age) we were left with two nice peices of side belly, now most folks either a)throw it to the hounds or b) cut and cube and grind it with the minx..

But I on the other hand was excited to see it as I knew that just like my Rabbit Jerky and Rabbit Bacon, that I was going to be making Lamb Bacon and Lamb Bacon Jerky..

Now there are a few differences, one of course being that its much bigger in size, but the second is more tricky, the much bigger fully attached on both sides silver skin that needs to come off either most of the way or all the way ideally.

Now I did look at it before I cured it and after make a few slits and tugs I decided to wait, as I know what the cure does to other meat cuts I have made in the past I was pretty sure that while the red muscle meat which was very soft and wanted to rip when I pulled before the cure, would in fact be nicely firm and I would be able to carefully get most of it off afterwards, this indeed proved the case..  Its worth noting that it took me more time to de-silver the cured lamb, then it it did to cut it off , prepare it, and even get it ready and use it in different dishes, which will include Lamb Bacon bits, Boston Baked Beans with Lamb Bacon, and Lamb Bacon Jerky, so just relax and don’t get in a hurry when it comes to peeling off your prepared cured meat. DH gave the finished Lamb Bacon two thumbs up, combined to regular homemade bacon (pig) its got more of a meaty texture then a tradional bacon does, flavour is excellent..

My cure was ultra easy and very tradional, and very free flowing (if you want purest measurements and I highly recommend you do so when starting, consider getting a good book on the subject), I put in four cups of water, 1 tea cup of sugar, 1 tbs of molassies, 1/4th cup of premixed salt/pink salt, pepper and minx’d garlic/dried chopped basil, I figured 3 to 4 days but was a touch surprised to find that while I started checking it on day 4 that it was not ready till day 5, while the thin parts could have been removed a day early the thicker peices needed that extra day..

The pictures show the raw peices, the peices in the glass bowl, they were weighted down with plate and the other one shows it cleaned up, trimmed and in ready to use peices, two of the thicker peices where used to make bacon bits, the cubed pile is what is being used for the Boston Baked Beans with Lamb Bacon and the three thinnest peices are being turned into Lamb Bacon Jerky.