Editor's note: If there's one thing that's as delightful and delectable as books, it's bacon. Here, our cookbook specialist and On the Table writer Tracey shares her soon-to-be-famous Baked Bacon recipe.
Step One: Do not preheat oven. (This is the most important step to remember.) This ensures the bacon has the long, slow cooking time necessary for this recipe to work.
Step Two: Lay bacon out on a cooking sheet with rolled edges, like a jelly roll pan. Fancy people will want to line their sheets with foil for easy cleaning. I have a dedicated bacon sheet that is always covered with a fine layer of bacon grease.
Step Three: Put the pan in the oven. Now turn on the oven to 400 degrees. Ignore for 16 to 20 minutes, depending on thickness of bacon and how your oven heats.
Step Four: Keep an eye on bacon during the last minutes of cooking, as it can speedily go from delightfully golden brown to dreadfully burnt black.
Step Five: Remove from oven, and enjoy!
This recipe renders a lot of lovely fat to save for another recipe.