3-Headed Bacon Biscuit

Ingredients for Dough:

• 1 cup flour

• 1.5 tsp sugar

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1/4 tsp salt

• 1/4 cup butter, shortening, lard, or bacon grease

• 1 cup sourdough starter

Directions for Biscuits:

1. Preheat oven to 425F

2. Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt into a large bowl

3. Cut in the fat with a pastry blender until the mixture looks like bread crumbs

4. Make a well in the center and add the starter

5. Stir with a wooden spoon until combined

6. Flour a board and hands generously

7. Turn out the dough and knead just enough to make it smooth; any more and the biscuits will be tough

8. Pat dough out to a 1/2 inch thickness and cut with a cookie cutter or inverted glass

9. Place on a lightly oiled cookie sheet or Pyrex dish

10. Oil the sheet/dish with the same fat as in the dough

11. To make biscuits rise the most, place them in the vessel with the sides touching

12. Cover the dish with waxed paper, place in a warm, draft-free place and let rise for 1/2 hr

13. Bake for 20-25 mins in the preheated oven

Ingredients for 3-Headed Tenderloin

• 4 pork tenderloins, trimmed of fat and silverskin, approximately 1 lb each

• 3 heads of garlic, peeled and trimmed

• 1 medium onion

• 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar

• Dash of olive oil

• 1 tbsp fresh leaves of lemon thyme
  1 tbsp each dried lemon and orange peel, hydrated in 2 oz white wine (Reisling)

• 6 tbsp Morton TenderQuick curing salt

• 4 tbsp dark brown sugar

Directions for Meat:

1. Mix all ingredients except the pork loin, Tenderquick and brown sugar in the bowl of a food processor and blend until a smooth paste

2. Transfer to a large bowl and add in Tenderquick and brown sugar

3. Stir to mix well

4. Rub this paste all over the 4 tenderloins and place in a Ziploc bag in the fridge for 4-5 days, massaging and working the paste mix evenly over the tenderloins once or twice each day

5. On day 4 or 5, remove loins from the Ziploc and rinse well under cold water, removing the paste, garlic, and lemon thyme leaves

6. Once large curing spices/garlic/onion is of the tenderloins, soak for 1/2 hour in cold water

7. Drain and repeat as necessary (I did 2 of the 1/2 hour soaking sessions before continuing)

8. Pat the tenderloins dry and allow to air-chill for an hour or two

9. Set up your smoker for cold-smoking application, achieving ideal temperature around 60-80F (for this I used the Backwoods Smoker and a hotplate set in the bottom with a pie pan set on top to contain the smoking wood. For smoking wood I used Smokinlicious woodcuts of pecan and bourbon)

10. 2 hours of cold-smoking produced a wonderful aroma and smoke element to the bacon

11. Because this ‘bacon’ was just given a cold-smoke application of heat and smoke, it will have to be fried up to a full internal temp of 155-165F in order to be ready to eat

12. I could have hot-smoked to 155F to achieve a ‘ready-to-eat’ product, but that was not my goal this time out

13. The finished product is ready to hit the frying pan – cook and enjoy!