The Whole Beast, Nose to Tail Eating, by Fergus Henderson has a recipe for bacon and beans which consists of a two pound slab of unsmoked streaky bacon baked underneath two pounds of navy beans, soaked overnight. I have made it with smoked bacon and think it's great. It also uses one pig trotter. Here's the recipe.

2 lbs navy beans soaked overnight
1 pig's trotter - or two quarts chicken stock.
2 carrots, peeled
2 whole onions, peeled, plus 3 onions peeled and chopped
2 stalks celery
3 HEADS garlic, unpeeled
bundle of fresh herbs tied together. Parsley, rosemary and thyme are suggested.
2 lb piece of unsmoked streaky bacon with rind on
duck fat or olive oil
2 leeks trimmed and chopped
28 ounce can plum tomatoes
salt and pepper

 

Cook soaked beans until thoroughly giving ... approximately one to two hours. DO NOT SALT. 

At the same time, cover trotter with water, carrots, whole onions, celery, 1 head of garlic and herbs and simmer for 2&1/2 hours. Skim scum.


Remove bacon rind in one piece, SAVE THIS and slice bacon into thick - 3/8", slices.


Fry bacon rind fat side down in duck fat or olive oil in pan and remove. Fry chopped onions and leeks until soft, add tomatoes, crushing them as you go. Let cook down for twenty minutes and stir together. Season with pepper and add two ladles of trotter stock and let simmer another 10 minutes.


Drain beans preserving soaking water and add beans to the pan with tomato base and combine.
In a Dutch oven lay down the bacon rind, then a layer of beans a layer of bacon, the trotter, more beans and bacon until full.

Nestle in a head of garlic and top up with trotter stock. Cover and bake for in 375 degree oven for 90 minutes and then uncover and cook a further 30 minutes. If it dries out, add bean soak water as necessary. Salt and pepper as desired.

This is very good and I have had great success using the whole slab of bacon, unsliced, with the rind left on. This makes handling it easy as it comes out of the beans whole and can be sliced and served on the beans.. I don't always have a trotter and find that the dish doesn't suffer much for lack of one. I use chicken stock mostly.

Henderson says, “Serve hot from the pot on the table with much red wine.”
He also says, “Streaky bacon is much like its American cousin, only leaner.”