Happy New Year!

In light of the New Year, I give you this website. Yes, folks, it's true---bacon is now available for drinking.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzz/Bacon_Cocktails

Does your browsing experience lack that special something?

It's happened to all of us. You have some favourite site -- something you load up and read every day. And it's a good site -- you're happy with it -- but you're not quite happy enough.

It needs something.

ewondergirl has you covered, as she has just sent us this link. Add more bacon to your internet with http://bacolicio.us/.

Bastardising Tradition: A Bacon-Laced Tourtière

[Cette recette est aussi disponible en français.]

In case this was not public knowledge, I'm French-Canadian. As a consequence, one of the traditional dishes in my family is... tourtière. It's a version of meat pie, with a bit of a twist, and several traditions attached. Multiple variations of this dish exist: in some regions of Québec, a tourtière is a thick, multi-layered pastry cooked in a deep clay dish. In the Montréal area, it tends to resemble a meat pie. It can be eaten any time of the year, but is often associated with Christmas and New Year's, and is eaten with the turkey and other trimmings. Now, I decided, for the benefit of bacon science, to try a baconised tourtière.

So here's the basic recipe:

Double pie crust (whatever recipe you prefer)
Equal amounts of lean ground beef and lean ground pork (about 1 pound (500 g) of meat is required for each tourtière)
Finely chopped onion (to taste; I used ½ medium onion for 8 tourtières)
Butter (to taste)
Worcestershire Sauce (1 tbsp (15 ml) per ½ pound (250 g) of meat, to taste)
Salt, Pepper, Savoury, to taste

In a large pot over medium heat, melt butter and warm onions until golden and translucent. Do not let the butter go brown. Add meat, pepper, savoury and Worcestershire sauce. Do not add salt until meat is cooked.

Cover and let simmer, stirring roughly every 5 minutes, until the meat is cooked thoroughly. The point is not so much browning as boiling the meat in its juices. Add salt and correct seasoning. Reserve.

Prepare pie crust, preheat the oven, and garnish the bottom of the pie with meat, draining excess fat from the meat as it is drawn from the pot. Do not fill over the brim to avoid fat and juices overflowing.

Cover with another layer and cut holes for steam. Cook according to needs of pie crust for double crust with cooked filling. For a nice golden finish, brush egg white over the crust prior to cooking.

This is the basic tourtière recipe. Now, for the bacon variation. I simply cooked half a package of bacon (½ pound, 250 g) and then poured the bacon and its juices into the remaining tourtière meat in the pot (when there was just enough for one pie). And then I cooked according to the ordinary recipe. The tourtière on the left on the image heading this post is the one with bacon.

The verdict will have to wait for the return of the other Bacon Saturday bloggers to this here town so they can taste this masterpiece... It is in the freezer, awaiting our next gathering! I have not touched it! BTW, tourtières freeze very well and keep up to six months in the freezer.

See, I'm doing my part for the cause, even going so far as bastardising a time-honoured French Canadian tradition. What I will not do in the interest of bacon science...

Amendment as of January 10, 2009. This has been tasted and has proven delicious.

A Public Service Announcement

So I saw The Spirit tonight.

Uh... don't.

More Happy Holidays

So I wake up this Christmas morning to the smell of ---what else?--- bacon frying. This bodes well, considering that, if you don't celebrate the holiday, there's really nothing to do.

Since I had nothing to do, I started pondering the purism issue when it comes to bacon. X brought up turkey bacon. So does back bacon count? Canadian bacon (and is that the same thing)? And I was at a Vietnamese restaurant with some people a couple of nights ago and my friend ordered soup with blood pudding. Once I figure out what species of nutrition blood pudding should belong to, then I'll see if it meets the bacon qualification. (Helpful hint: it was, in fact, pig blood pudding.)

So, in that spirit, Merry Noel, y'all. Eat more bacon.

Happy holidays!

Forgive my lack of bacon

I am home for the holidays, and while I did consider using bacon while crafting my lunch yesterday (grilled cheese sandwich w/brie and tomato), I was thwarted by something completely unexpected.

I did open the fridge and spot a package of bacon in the drawer. However, when I went to remove it, that was as far as my explorations extended. You see, my parents are trying to eat healthy -- certainly a laudable, if bacon-unfriendly goal -- and I discovered to my shock that they have been stocking turkey bacon. Or, in other words, slices of turkey that appear to be vaguely bacon shaped.

I may yet do something with these strange meats -- even if it's just a taste test, after which I will of course report back.

Today's Quotable Quotes

"the craving of a Jew for pork, in particular when it has been deep-fried, is a force greater than night or distance or a cold blast off the Gulf of Alaska." --- Michael Chabon

"Bacon is not pork."---The Jewish Mother

Bliss

Just because X promised we would not post pictures of our cats... Here are mine! Meet Mister R and Mister C. In a blissful state of oblivion on my bed.

I thought I could get away with this on my birthday... Tee hee!

Bacon Maple Shortbread Cookies

As part of Dr. Doreus's annual Christmas cookie baking party, we naturally had to contribute a little bacon this weekend. The suggestion came by way of the Goddess in BC -- thanks!

I still had some leftover maple fudge from the bacon apple pie, so brought it along with me. And bacon, of course; the evening's resident chemist was forced to enquire, "Do you just carry bacon in your purse now? In case of emergency?".

Who doesn't?

Anyway, we whipped up a batch of shortbread and set the dough in the fridge to chill. Meanwhile, we fried half a pack of bacon and chopped it into bacon bits.

The original recipe was just what was on the back of a box of Benson's Corn Starch (we are gourmets).

BACON MAPLE SHORTBREAD COOKIES

1/2 package bacon, fried and chopped
3-4 small pieces maple fudge, chopped/crumbled into small pieces
1/2 C corn starch
1/2 C icing sugar
1 C all-purpose flour
3/4 C softened butter

Chill dough for 1/2 hour to an hour. Preheat oven to 300. Roll dough into 1-inch balls, adding bacon bits and fudge. Press lightly into ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 15-20 minutes.



Some of the cookies did become deformed because the fudge bits were melting and running all over the place; we would suggest adding the bacon bits to the dough, rolling the cookie balls, and then pressing your thumb into the top of the cookie to make a depression in which you can then add the fudge bits. It might be less messy. These were quite tasty, though! There isn't much not to love about a bacon-maple-butter combo.

Verdict: delicious

Hats of Meat

It's been a long time since I've dug out this link, but I think we can all appreciate the possibilities of bacon as fashion accessory.

Maple Bacon Roast Chicken

It is exam week, and also the week after most final assignments were due. What does this mean? We have piles of marking taller than we are. So just making something with bacon wasn't enough -- no. No, I truly needed to procrastinate, with a full-on roast chicken dinner.

I used this recipe for maple roasted turkey with sage, smoked bacon, and cornbread stuffing. I did not have that much procrastination time available, so I completely cheated on the stuffing: I used Stovetop cornbread stuffing. Make it on the stove, stuff it in the chicken, roast the chicken. Easy and tasty.

I mashed some sage into the butter and rubbed the butter under the skin of the chicken; I stuffed the chicken (as noted) and stuck it in the oven at 325 for about an hour, basting it each half hour with the maple syrup/water mix. After an hour, I added the bacon. I continued to baste every half hour until the chicken was roasted (about three and a half hours total for me, but it will vary for you). In retrospect, I should have left the chicken uncovered at the beginning, as it wasn't very browned at the end -- I generally roast chickens or turkeys covered until the last hour, but the bacon (once added) precluded browning. Here is the chicken just out of the oven:



I removed the (now-candied) bacon, then diced it and added it to the stuffing:



The entire meal consisted of chicken, stuffing, corn, mashed potatoes, gravy, and asparagus. I also cheated on the gravy by adding roast drippings to a package of gravy mix -- normally I would actually make my own, but I didn't realize the chicken lacked neck/giblets (for simmering) and I didn't have any chicken stock handy. Thank you, emergency packet of Club House.

Verdict: Delicious. The chicken was moist and succulent, and the stuffing was excellent. The only downside is all the burned maple gunk glued to my roasting pan -- hopefully a good soaking will fix that.

Cinnilla also made some lovely bacon walnut cheesecake appetizers, which she will post about herself. Instead, I leave you with the following question: after we had finished our sumptuous meal, did we go back to marking? Or did we play old 8-bit video games?

Pigspiracy

Somehow, I thought this cartoon would be appropriate for this bacon blog... From Jean-Pierre Petit's website.

Somewhat Scary...

(From Jo Naylor's Flickr)

Yeah... I'm not sure about that one. But it was sent to me by a friend and sympathiser of this site. I have not seen those around here... yet! I can just imagine taking a few of those to "freshen my breath" just before going to class...

Salmon Carbonara Pasta

[Cette recette est également disponible en français.]

What does one do when, a salmon filet beckons from the depths of the fridge... and yet one has decided to invite X for a pasta dinner... entirely forgetting that poor fish, which will not suffice to feed two, but will not wait another day?

Well, there's one possible solution. First, boil lots of water in a large cauldron for pasta boiling. While the water warms up, in a large skillet, cook some bacon. Reserve on paper towels and rinse the pan with very hot water. If you prefer to use bacon fat to fry, fine with me... Personally, I don't like the flavour and to top it off it makes the pan sticky. In a bit of vegetable oil, fry the diced salmon until golden. Sprinkle with lemon juice and sprinkle with terragon. Add the bacon, some grated parmiggiano cheese and heavy cream. Warm thoroughly (do not boil) until the sauce thickens. Season to taste. Once the pasta are cooked, coat them with the sauce and serve immediately (ideally, on warm plates).

Verdict: Good, but could have been more tasty. A bit of garlic from the beginning would have helped (we added some garlic powder later on). It's a bit thick and heavy, but how soothing...

Smoked salmon mousse (can be made with bacon too!)

Finally... To top it off, although I have no picture of this, here's what was part of the appetiser course of our birthday dinner for X: a smoked salmon mousse. I found the recipe online, but it originally was published by well-known Québec foodie Daniel Pinard, and then by Josée di Stasio.

For a cup of mousse (well, I used a bit more salmon, because I had a larger package; so I adapted the other ingredients accordingly:

150 g (5 oz) smoked salmon
5 ml (1 tsp) horseradish
5 ml (1 tsp) finely-grated lemon rind
15 ml (1 tbsp) fresh lemon juice
75 ml (¼ cup) heavy cream (35%)
15 ml (1 tbsp) finely chopped chives [I substituted green onions for lack of fresh chives]
Freshly ground pepper

In a food processor, pulse together salmon, horseradish, lemon juice and rind. Add cream progressively, pulsing until it becomes a spread. Add chives and peper; mix in a bowl. Can be served with a few capers and fresh chives.

Spread on croutons, in an endive leaf or on a thick cucumber slice slightly hollowed out with a spoon or on bagels.

Divine.

As I do not own a food processor, I adapted the recipe for my blender: it only required chopping the salmon down with a knife on the cutting board and adding the cream directly to the mix before starting the blender so that it would work. If memory serves, I also added about a quarter-brick's worth of cream cheese to the mix... just 'cause I had it on hand. I served with freshly-made croutons (slather a bit of extra virgin olive oil on baguette slices and grill).

And yes, it can be made (and probably improved, if that were possible!) with bacon bits. But that would be for the next feast!

And another culinary crime: bacon-laced chocolate cupcakes

[Cette recette est aussi disponible en français.]

The crowning touch on X's birthday dinner were chocolate cupcakes... of which a dozen had been laced with bacon. It was worth the try!

Any basic chocolate cake recipe can be used for this debasement of culinary rules, even a commercial mix. My recipe came from my ever-faithful Encyclopédie de la cuisine de Jehane Benoît (Montréal, ÉRPI, 1991), p. 548 and was called "Chocolate cake; new method". By the way, Jehane Benoît, who would not have published such culinary heresies, would, it seems, have approved of our unorthodox ways. The opening of her tome states [my translation]: "Original and creative cooking becomes easy once one has grasped all the basic principles on which culinary art rests. From there, it is possible to improvise using one's imagination, using what I call 'finesse and flair in cooking'. [...] One's artistic sensibility, joined with this knowledge, allows one to observe, plan, and give free rein to one's imagination. Further, one will always get new ideas to try out." (Ibid, pp. IX-X)

Now that I've found a truly Jesuitic justification for our baconification enterprise, here is the recipe. For 24 cupcakes or two 9-inch (23 cm) cakes:

• 500 ml (2 cups) flour (the recipe calls for pastry/cake flour, but I used all-purpose flour because that was what was in my kitchen and it worked equally well.)
• 425 ml (1¾ cup) sugar
  
• 175 ml (¾ cup) cocoa
• 6 ml (1¼ tsp) baking soda
  
• 3 ml (¾ tsp) baking powder (I put a tad more to compensate for my additions)
• 5 ml (1 tsp) salt (I put a tad less)
• 175 ml (¾ cup) vegetable shortening
• 300 ml (1¼ cup) milk
• 3 eggs
  
• 5 ml (1 tsp) vanilla extract

And I added:

• 75 ml (¼ cup) chopped bittersweet chocolate (one could use chocolate chips, I suppose)
  
• Well-cooked (crisp) bacon, crushed
  

Dry ingredients before mixing; the reflection on the inside of the bowl were irresistible to the photographer...

Preheat oven to 180° C (350° F). Prepare baking pans. Sift together (or simply mix well) dry ingredients (the first 6 on the list) in a large mixing bowl. Work the vegetable shortening in the mix. Add liquid ingredients and eggs. Mix (medium speed) until ready:

Add chocolate pieces (or chips) and mix well. As I was only adding bacon to half the recipe, I first filled the first twelve muffin pans (using an ice-cream scoop works wonders) before adding bacon to the other half of the recipe.

Cook 15 minutes for cupcakes or 35 minutes for the large (9") cakes. Test readiness with a toothpick before taking out of the oven. Let cool 10 minutes and take out of molds. Let cool completely before icing.

To make icing, soften 125 ml (½ cup) butter in a bowl and add approximately 750 ml (3 cups) or more icing sugar. Mix well using a hand (or stand) mixer. Add one egg white and/or ½ cream cheese brick and beat until soft. Flavour with vanilla or any other (I once tried orange rind and Grand Marnier; it was divine). This mix can also be coloured.

X defines a cupcake as an "icing delivery system". Don't be cheap! In order to know the bacon cupcakes from their less lethal brethren, I decorated them with a bit of the meat on the icing. The "ordinary" cupcakes had colour sprinkles.

These may not be healthy, but the cupcakes provide healing to the soul at the end of the semester... as marking gets more and more intense and the days become ever shorter in these here parts.

Delicious pork tenderloin roast... yes, with bacon!

[Cette recette est aussi disponible en français.]

Sadly, I was so intensely concentrated on getting X's birthday party right... that I forgot to take a picture of the roasted pig! Anyway... it was very enjoyable. The recipe for this delicacy was drawn from L'encyclopédie de la cuisine de Jehane Benoît (Montréal, ÉRPI, 1991), pp. 241-242. I simply modified it a bit by adding garlic to the meat, using grainy mustard and... bacon!

For one of these two roasts, you need:

• 2 medium pork tenderloins, sliced lengthwise
• 2 cloves garlic (the recipe calls for only one; that is far from enough)
  
• 3 medium potatoes (the recipe calls for six; that's way too much!)
• Savoury, salt and pepper
• 1 fried onion
  
• [1 raw green onion]
• [4 half-slices cooked (but not crispy) bacon]
• Vegetable oil (the recipe calls for bacon fat)
• Mustard (the recipe calls for dry mustard; I used French grainy mustard)
  

Preheat oven to 350° F. Cook potatoes, crush them, add savoury, seasonings, and fried onion. Mix and let cool.

The recipe calls for rubbing the meat with the garlic clove. That would be fine if one really does not like garlic. I preferred making small slits with a sharp knife in the meat to insert slivers of garlic cloves all over. And I added bacon. Just 'cause.

Then add the potatoes on one of the meat slabs and add mustard. Form a "meat sandwich" and tie the whole into a roast.

Place in a baking pan with 50 ml (¼ cup) hot water. Cook 30-35 minutes for each pound (500 g) of meat. Baste a couple of times while cooking.

Just as I was about to serve the meat, I realised I had forgotten to prepare a sauce, and there was not much liquid in the pan. I thus poured maple syrup into a gravy boat and served it as a sauce. It worked wonders. I also had a few pieces of butter beans (from my garden!) with small dices of red pepper just warmed over in a pan with a bit of butter. And a half-tomato cut in "wolves' teeth" as decoration.

Oh! Delish.

A quick note on current events

I saw a headline yesterday that read 'Obama to name Clinton Monday' -- and my first thought was to wonder whether the United States had a highly improbable new holiday.

Friday evening culinary crime: "Brie-bert" in phyllo with bacon

[Cet article est aussi disponible en français.]

As the Holidays draw near... you might want to surprise your guests with original meals. This was inspired by a discovery I made while living in Abitibi (Northern Québec). There was a café in Rouyn-Noranda, called l'Abstracto which served a decadent dessert aptly named «brie emphylloppé». I never asked for the recipe, but it basically consisted in a piece of brie with a dollop of apple sauce in phyllo paste, served with a raspberry coulis. Divine...

For X's birthday, Friday, I decided to host a bacon-themed dinner at my house this time. Somehow, I had to outdo the crepe-filled menu from last year. There were six of us enjoying the following home-made menu:

• Abbey cider
  
• Dips and crudités
  
• Smoked salmon mousse
  
• Brie-bert emphylloppé (with bacon)
• Pork tenderloin roast (with bacon)
• Chocolate cupcakes (with or without bacon)
• Someone had brought a lovely red wine to complement it all...

As can be seen, I decided to serve the "brie-bert emphylloppé" as an appetiser rather than dessert, since the cup-birthday-cakes could not be outdone. The following recipe is my approximate recreation of what I had tasted. I had fresh dates and frozen cranberries and decided to make a berry sauce from it rather than taking apple sauce... it added zest to it all. And of course I had to add bacon (to some of the pieces, in case this turned out to be a disaster).

For four brie-berts:

• 3 sheets phyllo pastry
• Butter
• A few slivers of brie and camembert cheese
• 4 cooked bacon half-slices (cooked, but not crispy)
• 1 tbsp berry sauce (below)
• 1 tbsp berry sauce, a few blackberries and maple syrup for serving
  

Approximate ingredients for the berry sauce (I did not measure anything here...):

• ½ cup pitted fresh dates
  
• ½ cup cranberries (fresh or frozen; no need to thaw in the latter case)
  
• ¼ cup orange juice
  
• ½ cranberry cocktail
  
• Ground nutmeg
  

Preheat oven to 400°F. Prepare the berry sauce, as it must cool down before insertion in the brie-berts. In a small saucepan on medium heat, purée dates and cranberries with a bit of orange juice and/or cranberry cocktail. Add a bit of nutmeg when it has reached the right purée texture. A blender can be used to smoothe it out and a little juice added to reach the right texture. Reserve and let cool.

Butter up three sheets of phyllo pastry (according to the instructions on the pack). Cut into four pieces (roughly 6 inches square). On each, put a half slice of bacon, a piece of brie, another of camembert, and cover with berry sauce. I forgot to take pictures of the baconated brie-berts; the one below does not have one.

Wrap up and butter up the top. Place in a baking dish and bake until golden (about 20 minutes; mine took longer because the oven was only at 350° F because of the pork roast.

Serve hot on a dollop of berry sauce and some berries. Adding a bit of maple syrup on top will only make the little buggers divine!