I did a search and was too lazy to get past the first couple pages of results...
I don't know if this has been mentioned but I've undergone yet another evolution in the cooking of my bacon. I call it my bacon because even though I will cook some for both me and my wife, I'll usually end up stealing hers. Anyways, back to the evolution...
First, I believed that the only way you could cook bacon properly was in a pan, cast iron of course, and preferably with a nice heavy bacon press, cooking in its own fat. Crispy? Yes. Delicious? Check. Unhealthy? It's cooked in its own fat, come on.
Next, I flirted briefly with the microwave. Those of you who subscribe to this method are only fooling yourselves that the finished product comes even within a mile of the aforementioned fried-in-its-own-fat method. Though seemingly healthier, the microwave method (even with a turntable microwave) was never able to replicate the consistent crispiness achieved with more "archaic" methods.
I then decided a compromise was in order: I would cook the bacon in its own fat, but not nearly as much so as was required before. How? With a flat counter-top griddle with grooves along the sides to channel the majority of the fat away from its surface. No, this was no George Foreman grill. This was a flat griddle that could accomodate french toast, pancakes, or eggs (over-easy of course) on one side while cooking the bacon on the other. There was only one problem with this method: the bacon took agonizingly longer to cook than most other foods did on the other side of the griddle. There were two solutions: 1) stagger the cooking to start the bacon first and the other food items later, or 2) take the next step in bacon cooking evolution. I tried the first, but found it too time-consuming and user-unfriendly having to monitor 8 things at once... I have ultimately taken the later step which I will describe below.
The next step of my bacon cooking evolution turned to an appliance that I had previously used to keep my bacon warm, while other items were cooking... the oven. Admittedly, part of this evolution in bacon cooking was inspired by Alton Brown (who cooks his bacon in the oven on thick slices of bread). While the bacon turns out beautifully through his method, your left with multiple slices of bread that usually go to waste. That's when one day, I saw it. My wife had just finished cooking a batch of chocolate chip cookies and had set them on a raised wire mesh grill to cool. That's when it hit me... cook the bacon on the wire mesh grill!
The next day, with my wife's mesh wire grill in my possession, I set my oven to 350 degrees, placed the mesh grill on a baking sheet (with sides, you don't want the fat to run off right?) and carefully laid my precious bacon down to cook. Approximately 10 minutes later, I tentatively opened the oven door and beheld one of the most beautiful sights seen by those of us in the Bacon thread: perfect bacon. Crisp, evenly cooked, deliciously browned, and free of fat (well most of it, there's always some that lingers on the top). Clean up was a breeze, a gentle scrubbing with a soapy sponge and the baking sheet was good to go. Additionally, minute adjustments over cooking time allows unprecedented control over the finished product with minimal supervision.
Is it possible that other methods might eventually rise to the occasion and even transcend this modified oven method? Sure. But if you've never tried cooking bacon in the oven, I recommend that you try it just once. With or without the mesh grill, the consistency of heat distribution and the control gained over the level of crispiness is hard to beat.
As Homer once said, "Mmmmmm, bacon."
