YET MOAR BAYKUN!

Hey, I'm back already!

In case you haven't already guessed, I get a pretty puffed chest when I make my own bacon from scratch, as described in this post.

Now, as time goes on and I keep having fun with this specific form of curing/smoking, I find a need to stretch my creative wings and experiment a little with ingredients and flavours. My first attempt was already going beyond the 'normal' salt and sugar cure by using a smattering of Sriracha salt. Later attempts threw in maple syrup, Steak Spice and Thai Spice Rub.

But last week, I think I may have truly broken through the creative barrier of bacon making. I'm not sure where the idea came from, maybe from the need to look for other sources of sweetness than sugar and maple syrup, maybe because it's one of my favourite new experimental flavours. But it hit me like a bolt: VANILLA BACON!!!!!!!

I had the pork belly sitting in the fridge, ready for some salty-sugary love. So, all I had to do was come up with how to get the cure together. Well, it wasn't really complicated:

Spicy Vanilla Bacon Cure (for about 1 lb of pork belly)
- 1/3 cup kosher salt
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- (at least!) 1 tsp berbere spice (or some other source of spiciness)
- 3 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tsp high quality vanilla extract

- Stir all ingredients together with a fork and coat meat well with cure.



Getting the cure going

 
I left it in the fridge for about a week, tossing in a bit more salt and sugar on the last day.

When ready for smoking, I washed off the remaining cure, dried the bacon with paper towel, and smoked it for 3 hours with mesquite charcoal and pecan wood chips for smoke.



Freshly smoked! Mmmm, vanilla...

Now, like any good cook, I had to sample the wares, so I sliced off four small pieces (nice and thick!) and fried them up, put 'em on toast, spread some mayo, took a picture, added some tomato, and lunch was served!


Tasty lunch!



The verdict? The boozy, fragrant quality of the vanilla was definitely apparent and totally delicious, if a little understated. I'd have liked it to be more pronounced. Maybe I'll try a combo of curing with salt and sugar, and injecting vanilla right into the meat (still need to get into that whole 'injecting' style of prepping meat for smoking). The spicy element of the berbere really didn't come through very well, I'll use more next time. But, it's still tasty, tasty, TASTY bacon!

How much more fun will I engage in as part of my explorations into unique forms of bacon? I will definitely keep you posted!

Cheers!

MOAR BACON!

Hi there!

Alright, alright, I'll admit it, bacon is pretty much the most popular food in the world, at least it is definitely so online - it's all-frakking-pervasive. It's been written about ad nauseum and used in crazy, over the top food creations featured on Web sites like Epic Meal Time and the former This Is Why You're Fat, it's been the bane of vegetarians everywhere (seriously, it's the only meat product I know that hardcore vegetarians and vegans ever express missing), and it's probably making an entire generation of girlfriends a little crazy hearing odes to cured pork from their significant others...

Now, that being said, it's one thing to spout on and on about the stuff you buy at the store, it's quite another to talk about bacon made in your smoker and all its neat applications! As I've demonstrated before, I can make my own bacon from scratch *puffs out chest* and I like to do it once or twice a month. What can I say? Almost everything you make yourself tastes better!

An intrinsic quality of bacon (and really, any similarly cured/smoked/dried pork product like pancetta, prosciutto, speck and many others) is its versatility. Bacon is used in any the day's meals, at any time of the day and can be included in all courses, even dessert. Ever have Candied Bacon on a scoop of really good vanilla ice cream? Neither have I, but I betcha THAT is a dessert worthy of remembrance. (Note to self, make Candied Bacon. SOON!)

So, in order to celebrate the versatile goodness of our favourite pork product, I present to you three different applications that I put together using a slab of home-smoked bacon.


Application 1 - Spinach Salad w. Bacon, Strawberries and Maitake Mushrooms

One way to eat bacon that's a little more healthy than a plate full of strips is to add it to a salad. And a "traditional" application is in a Spinach Salad. Now, back in my salad days (i.e. when I was a salad cook), Spinach Salad was a mix of spinach, walnuts, sliced white mushrooms, strawberries, bacon bits and a raspberry vinaigrette. My version is similar, using Maitake mushrooms, pecans instead of walnuts and adding Parmesan cheese over top.

My dressing was a combination of blueberries (1/2 cup), balsamic vinegar (3 tbsp), olive oil (3 tbsp), salt and pepper (to taste), smoked paprika (pinch), lime juice (2 tsp) and lime zest (1 tsp). I just tossed it all in a food processor and that was that!

Spinach Salad

Application 2 - Bacon-Poblano Butter

Compound butters are a really neat way to express your culinary creativity and they're quite easy to make. Normally, a compound butter is a mix of butter and other ingredients, such as herbs and wine, that is then refrigerated, cut into rounds and goes on top of a steak. In this case, I broke from tradition and kept the butter soft so we could spread on some delicious Bread and Sons Sourdough Baguette. So here's how it was made:

Ingredients

- 1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
- 2 tbsp cooked bacon, minced
- 2 tbsp smoked or roasted poblano pepper, minced (to smoke poblano, coat in oil and smoke at 225-250 degrees Fahrenheit for 2-3 hours, until flesh has softened and skin can be peeled with ease. You can roast the poblano in the oven at the same heat for the same time or increase to shorten cooking time, but you'll have to watch to ensure there are no flare-ups from the oil)
- 2 tbsp white wine
- 1 clove garlic, finely minced
- salt and pepper to taste (you shouldn't need salt, enough comes from the bacon)
- 2 tsp cilantro, minced (optional)

- Mix all ingredients together with a fork or in a food processor until well-blended.
- Spread on warmed bread

Bread and Bacon-Poblano Butter

Application 3 - Bacon Nachos

Now, one final awesome aspect of bacon is its ability to, if you're brave enough, be used substitute for ground meat. At least one restaurant chain has used ground bacon to make a hamburger. Ow, my arteries. But I do think a smattering of uncooked bacon mixed into the ground beef used in a burger would be an excellent touch. I'll have to put that on the to-do list...

In the meanwhile, I was somewhat obsessed with the next item in our bacon-o-rama: Bacon Nachos. It's no secret that I'm a HUGE pro wrestling fan and there's really no better way to enjoy freakishly large people pretending to beat each other up than with nachos and beer. So, it was Monday night, time for WWE Raw, and I wanted me some Bacon Nachos, goddammit!

Only problem was that there was no salsa in the house. Not to worry though! I made my own! Now, the following is a quick, in-a-pinch recipe for what I call "Pan Salsa" and it really only makes enough to one decent baking sheet full of nachos (a little over a cup). If you're looking for a more prolific salsa recipe, move along...

Pan Salsa

This is a fairly mild salsa suitable for just about all but the wimpiest of palettes for spice.

Ingredients

- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 3 cloves garlic, minced

- 1 small onion, diced

- 2-3 ripe tomatoes, diced
- 1 small bell pepper, diced (I prefer red)
- 1 tsp chili powder (I used a home made mix of powdered arbol and guajillo chilis, cumin, coriander and smoked paprika)
- pinch salt
- 1/4 cup cider vinegar
- 1 tsp tomato paste (optional - if you like a thicker salsa)
- 2 tsp fresh cilantro (optional)

- Heat oil in a small saucepan on medium-high heat and sauté onions and garlic.
- Add tomatoes, pepper, seasoning and vinegar (and paste if using). Stir together and let come to a boil.
- Reduce heat to low and simmer for 30 minutes.
- Remove from heat and stir in cilantro, if using.

OK, moving on, it's time for the moment you've all been waiting for, BACON NACHOS!!!!!!

Ingredients

- 4-5 strips of cooked bacon, minced into "bits" size (add more if you like, be my guest!)
- 1 300g bag of tortilla chips (I like to use Neal Brothers Organic Blue Corn)
- 1 batch Pan Salsa (see above)
- 1 cup each grated Monterey Jack and Extra Old Cheddar cheeses
- 1 cup chopped cilantro (optional)
- hot sauce to taste

- Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil or parchment paper.
- Set out a layer of tortilla chips (don't feel compelled to use the whole bag, I never do).
- Spoon salsa over chips, then spread bacon out evenly across chips.
- Top with cheese and bake for about 15 minutes, until top of cheese starts to turn golden brown.
- Serve how you like (on plates, on the baking sheet, whatever) and top with as much hot sauce and cilantro as you like.

Bacon Nachos. 'nuff said

 So, there you go, just a few ideas on how to get your bacon fix outside the same ol' BLT or bacon n' eggs.

ENJOY!!!!!!

A pair of Italian classics

Hi there!

Hopefully by now you all know how I feel about home-smoked bacon. It's just something really special that few people would take the time to do, not like most people have that kind of time anyway! So, when I do take the time to make my own, I like to think of the best ways to use it. I've used it in chili, made a LOT of greasy breakfasts, and had a good whack of sandwiches. But after three different sessions of creating my own bacon, I've started to run out of ideas. Luckily, Mother Nature inspired me on a freakish April morning. When I started writing this post, it was April 23rd and we were getting snow. Yup, snow in late April, frak me.

But this kind of weather does kindle the spirit of creating hearty comfort food at least one last time. And there's something about Italian food in general and pasta in particular that makes it possibly THE most comforting kind of food in the world. So, when one thinks of pasta and bacon, naturally the thoughts gravitate to Carbonara. For those who don't know, Carbonara is a rich style of sauce using bacon, egg and dairy (milk/cream and/or cheese). It's preparation is simple enough: bacon is cooked in a pan, other ingredients, including cooked pasta, are thrown in the pan using some of the fat to bind the sauce with garlic, onion, dairy and other ingredients. Finally, egg is added and lightly cooked to add richness. It's quite tasty and hearty; perfect for an April blizzard.

Carbonara is most commonly used with spaghetti, but linguine, fettuccine and "stringy" pastas work as well. In this case, I only had linguine, so that's what I used!

Pasta Carbonara (mainly taken from this recipe at AllRecipes.com)

Serves 2 (4 if appetites are small)

Ingredients

- 250 g (1/2 pound) spaghetti, linguine or other pasta
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 4 slices of bacon (best possible!)
- 1 small red onion, diced
- 1-2 cloves garlic, minced
- a splash of white wine
- 1/2 cup 2 % milk (most recipes I've found use cream, but that's too damn rich for my blood)
- 2 large eggs
- 1/4-1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese (to taste)
- 2 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped

Directions
- Set pot of salted water to boil to cook pasta. Cook pasta to desired tenderness, strain and set aside in a bowl tossed with olive oil to keep pasta from sticking to itself.
- In a pan, fry bacon until crisp and set aside on paper towels. Reserve 1 tbsp of bacon fat in pan, drain the rest.
- Sauté onion and garlic in bacon fat until onions are well-cooked. Add wine and milk and reduce a little (cook for about 5 minutes).
- Add cooked bacon and pasta. Toss everything to coat well.
- Add eggs and cook while tossing constantly. You want to cook the eggs just a little so that they set, but you're not making an pasta omelette!
- Add cheese and toss everything well. Serve in a large pasta bowl/plate and top with parsley and extra cheese if desired.



OK, the plating isn't 4-star restaurant quality, but that's some tasty pasta!

 Now, since Carbonara isn't exactly health food and the amount of veggies used in it is kind of small, I figured a nice salad would be a good accompaniment.

Another Italian classic is Panzanella Salad, which is basically a bread salad. Traditionally, at least according to wikipedia, it's made using stale bread that's been soaked and then squeezed dry, tomatoes, oil and vinegar, with onions and basil added for good measure. Ironically enough, I made a salad similar to a Panzanella last Summer without actually knowing it had a name. I guess good recipes are somewhat universal...

Now, my version of the panzanella was basically the same thing as the traditional version with two notable exceptions. First, instead of using stale bread, I used toasted cornbread I'd made a few days earlier. Second, I omitted the raw onions (because who needs the heartburn?) and replaced them with sliced artichoke hearts and slices of bocconcini. So here's how to make it.

Panzanella Salad - Brennan-style

Serves 2

Ingredients

- 2 slices stale bread, toasted (focaccia works best - or use the equivalent amount of cornbread, toasted in the oven or toaster until crispy) and cubed
- 2 ripe tomatoes, diced
- 1-2 marinated artichoke hearts, sliced
- 2-3 bocconcini balls, sliced (or more if using the tiny version of bocconcini)
- 2 tbsp best-quality olive oil
- 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- juice of 1/8 lemon
- salt and pepper to taste
- pinch red chili flakes
- 1 tsp fresh basil, chopped

- In a bowl, combine bread, tomatoes, artichoke and bocconcini.
- In another bowl, whisk together olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice, salt, pepper and chili flakes
- Add dressing to salad and toss.
- Serve topped with fresh basil.


While it might not be traditional, it's damn tasty!

 And there it is! One last salute to wintry comfort food with a bit of Spring freshness on the side. I hope you enjoy it! I certainly did!

Till next time!

Not Your Average Sandwich! - Episode 3: BACON!!!! Taking the BLT to New Heights!

Hi, I like bacon! You like bacon! Let us rejoice in its joyous salty smoky porcine goodness!

Commence drooling...

Everyone knows and loves the BLT: bacon, lettuce and tomato on toasted bread with mayo. But like all good things, with some love and effort, you can take a well-loved, but fairly mundane, standard and kick that sucker up to heights undreamed of! How?, you ask. Well, one way is by replacing boring old iceberg lettuce with something more snazzy, like arugula or red leaf. Or heck, omit the lettuce altogether and swap in some avocado!

But if you really want to take it to a new level, make your own bacon. Yup, you heard me: Make. Your. Own. Bacon. It's craziness, I know, and it takes a fair bit of time. But wow, there's something beyond satisfying about taking something as ubiquitous and fantastic as bacon and making it all your own.

So what is bacon exactly? Well, according to wikipedia, it's cured pork meat. What cut of meat and how it's cured varies around the world and even across the street. Your standard bacon in North America is made from pork belly, but other nations use the shoulder, loin, fatback, and so on. Our neighbours to the south often refer to a cut known as Canadian Bacon, which we call back bacon. It can be brined (or 'wet-cured') and it can be dry-cured. It can be used directly after curing (so-called 'fresh bacon') or it can be dried or boiled, but I think the best bacon is smoked to get that extra level of flavour. Some people even double smoke their bacon (cold-smoked for days at first, then hot-smoked for a few hours). But, I figured I'd keep it a little simpler than that.

Now, my way of making bacon has two basic steps: curing and smoking. As I mentioned, you can skip the smoking step, but why would you want to??!?! So, let's get to it!

Making Bacon (anyone else remember that Maple Leaf ad from the 80s with the little kid saying "makin' bacon, makin' bacon" over and over again?)

First off, you need to pick up some pork belly. It's available at most butchers and supermarkets. How much you pick up depends on how much bacon you want to make. I noticed that, as opposed to store bought bacon, when frying up homemade bacon, it doesn't shrivel up as much. That might be because I cut my strips very thick, but I think it has something to do with the quality of the meat; I somehow doubt that the meat used in the giant bacon factory is as high quality as that which you get at the local butcher. All this to say that a little pork belly goes a fairly long way. I think I picked up maybe a little over a kilo or so (about 2 pounds), so that's the weight I'll use for proportions in this post.

Once it was home, I cut the skin and a few millimetres of fat off the pork belly, cut the belly in half to make two square pieces, and placed them in a non-reactive dish. A glass-pyrex lasagna pan works well.

Next, it's time to make the cure. I happen to be lucky enough to have Sriricha Salt on hand (that Kari made from the Sriracha Cookbook by Randy Clemens), so I used a bit of that, but it's by no means necessary. Then again, I could use this opportunity to reprint Mr. Clemens' recipe for you so you can use it yourselves!

Sriracha Salt

Ingredients

- 1/2 cup kosher salt
- 5 tsp Sriracha sauce

Directions

- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper
- In a bowl, mix salt and Sriracha. Spread out mixture thinly over baking sheet and allow it to dry uncovered for about a day or two, stirring once or twice.
- Store in an airtight container for future use.

And there you go! So now let's get to our cure!

Bacon Cure

Ingredients

- 1/2 cup mixture of kosher salt and Sriracha salt. How much Sriracha salt you use depends on how spicy you want your bacon. I used a tablespoon which wasn't really enough for my taste, I didn't get much heat off the bacon. So, I'd say 2 tablespoons of Sriracha salt and the rest plain kosher salt
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 2-3 tablespoons maple syrup (optional)

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, but only add the maple syrup if you're going to be curing your pork belly right away.

If you're not planning on curing the meat right away, put the mix of the other ingredients in some kind of sealable container or plastic bag until you're ready to use it.

If, like me, you got an instant hankerin' to get that piggy goodness a-curing, you'll get to it right away.

Curing Bacon

Take the bacon cure and apply it liberally to all sides of the pork belly, pressing it into the meat. You want to get a crust of cure on all sides of the meat. It's going to be sitting around for a while in this cure, so you need a good layer.

Once you've applied the cure, wrap the meat in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge in some sort of bowl or pan that can collect any moisture that will leak out of the meat, because it will, and that's all part of the process.

Leave the pork belly in the cure for anywhere from 4 to 7 days. During this time, the salt and sugar will be absorbed into the meat, causing it to dry out and contract a little bit. You'll see this happen within a couple of days. You can reapply more cure if you like, but I found it unnecessary to do so. As I said before, there will also be some liquid collecting at the bottom of the container. Leave it there, or you can rub it back into the meat (that sounds messy though, since the liquid is mostly maple syrup). Either way, it'll get reabsorbed and keep adding flavour to the meat.

When you're ready to get the meat on the smoker, take it out of the fridge and let it sit out for an hour or two to warm up a little, it helps the smoking process. Now, should timing issues arise, as they did with me, you might not have time to smoke the meat after 7 days. I suggest you freeze the cured meat in a ziploc-style bag. Once you're ready to smoke it, let it thaw out overnight in the fridge. It'll be ready to go, but when you remove it from the bag, pat it dry with paper towel. You don't want any moisture on the meat before it goes in the smoker.

And now, let's smoke our bacon!

Smoking Bacon

So, we've talked at length about smoking on this blog, so check the link for this post to get the detailed basics. In this case, the desired smoking conditions are 225 to 250 Fahrenheit for about 4 hours for 2 pounds. The more meat you smoke, the longer it'll take. As usual, I use lump maple charcoal to build the fire. For smoke, I used a handful of apple wood chips, soaked in water for about 30 minutes (hence, apple-wood smoked bacon!). As you smoke the bacon, rotate each piece every 30 minutes or so to ensure even smoking on all sides. Because the bacon is already cured, there's nothing that needs to be added while it smokes. Once you've smoked it for 4 hours, it's ready to go. Remove it from the smoker and let it rest for 30 minutes before slicing.

You can slice the bacon however you want. I like thick slices of bacon, so I just used a kitchen knife and sliced about 3 millimetres thick. If you prefer your bacon to be the same thickness as what you get at the supermarket, you're going to need a deli slicer, or surgical precision with a knife.



Bacon slices and slab

 
 






































Now, this is a post about making sandwiches, so we should maybe get on that!

Making the BAT (Bacon, Avocado and Tomato) Sandwich 

The regular BLT is a pretty damn tasty sandwich in its right, but I find ordinary iceberg lettuce utterly boring, except maybe on a hamburger. So, I picked up a box of mixed greens (red leaf lettuce, spinach and other greens) and decided that instead of using the greens in the salad, I'd have them on the side with a tasty little dressing. So, what the heck should replace the lettuce? Hmmmm, well, avocado's green, that'll do as a replacement (it's also really freaking delicious!). And with that, we have the BAT!

Fryin' up the goodness!

Bacon, Avocado and Tomato Sandwich

Makes 2 sandwiches

Ingredients

- 6 slices homemade bacon, cut about 3 millimetres thick
- 4 slices rye bread
- 1 ripe tomato, sliced
- 1 ripe avocado, pitted and sliced
- 2 tbsp mayonnaise
- black pepper to taste







Directions

- Fry up bacon slices in a skillet to desired doneness. Thicker-cut bacon can be cooked until very crispy (even a little burnt) on the outside while still being tender on the inside, so it's pretty hard to overdo it. Set done bacon on paper towels to drain.
- While frying bacon, put bread in the toaster and toast to desired doneness
- Spread mayo and pepper on bread and layer bacon, tomato and avocado. Slice sandwich in half and serve with salad.

Quick Dressing for Green Salad

- 2 tbsp avocado or olive oil
- 1 tbsp tarragon vinegar
- juice of 1/8 lemon or lime
- small pinch red pepper flakes
- small pinch kosher salt
- 1/2 tsp maple syrup

- Whisk all ingredients together and toss over greens.

And there you have it - a celebacon! (like celebration, but with bacon... shut up, it's funny!)

The BAT with the L on the side...

Enjoy!

More grilled goodies!

Alright maybe I've kind of diverged from the original raison-d'être for this blog. I might be getting too fancy. I honestly don't know since most cooking comes pretty easy to me and my instinct is that it comes pretty easily to most people if they just take the time to try it out. Let's hope I'm right!

With that in mind, I'm going to share some recipes that, while seeming pretty complex, are actually pretty easy if you follow the steps.

So, without further ado, I give you Bacon-Wrapped Peaches and "Real" Grilled Cheese.

Bacon-Wrapped Peaches

I give my friends Paul and Randy credit for originally putting these two awesome ingredients together. I tweaked the recipe for a party last Summer and got glowing reviews. So, your turn!

Ingredients (for 20 pieces)

- 5 ripe peaches, quartered
- 7 strips bacon, cut into 3 equal pieces
- 20 toothpicks, soaked in water for an hour or two
- 1/2 cup Irish whiskey
- 1/2 cup maple syrup

Preparation

- mix whiskey and syrup in a bowl
- put peaches and whiskey/syrup marinade in a large freezer bag, toss and place in fridge for 3-6 hours
- cook bacon strips about halfway and reserve. It's important that the bacon be cooked enough to have some solidity, but not enough to be easily broken. Essentially, you want it to be a little more malleable than beef jerky.
- loop 1 bacon slice per peach quarter and fasten with toothpick. This could get messy, but it doesn't need to be perfect. You'll have an extra slice of bacon. Feed it to the dog?
- preheat grill to about medium.
- grill each peach piece until bacon is fully cooked and peach starts to get soft.
- remove from heat, let cool for a few, EAT IT!


"Real" Grilled Cheese

I just put this one together last night and, while somewhat involved, it's pretty easy, and DEEEEElicious!

Ingredients

- 1 baguette or other similar bread, sliced (like they do at the deli)
- sliced smoked gruyere or gouda cheese
- precooked bacon (optional)

brushing oil

- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- 2-3 drops liquid smoke

Essentially, crush a peeled garlic clove with the flat end of a knife (or hammer, or your fist, or head, or whatever you feel like using), add to oil, add liquid smoke to oil, stir and elt sit for a couple of hours.

2 - caramelized onions

- 1 small sweet onion, sliced
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tbsp butter

- coat the onions in brown sugar, let sit for 30 mins or so
- fry the onions and sugar in butter until sugar caramelizes on onions, about 5-7 mins at medium-high heat. Set aside.

Putting together the sandwich

- on one half of the bread, layer cheese, bacon and onions. If possible, try to get cheese on both the top and bottom half of the bread.
- replace the tops and brush the tops of both sides of the loaf liberally with brushing oil.
- grill on medium-low heat, enough to toast the bread and melt the cheese. Use a spatula to press down on bread if you want a panini-like consistency.
- remove from eat, allow to cool enough to handle, EAT!


And that's that!