Bacon Nation: 125 Irresistible Recipes (16 page)

Perfect Hard-Cooked Eggs

Makes 6 eggs

There are different methods for cooking hard-cooked eggs, and they call for carefully monitoring the cooking time so the eggs are neither too soft nor too hard when done. We found this method to be the most reliable for producing perfectly hard-cooked eggs without the fragile shells cracking as they cook. Of course, for egg salad, if a shell does break and some of the egg white spills into the cooking water, the egg can still be peeled, mashed, and mixed up with the other ingredients.

6 large eggs (room temperature)

1
Gently arrange the eggs so they fit in a single layer in a medium-size saucepan. Add water to cover the eggs by 1 inch and let come to a boil, uncovered, over high heat, about 9 minutes. (The number of eggs you cook can be increased as long as you use a saucepan or pot that is large enough to hold the eggs in a single layer.)

2
As soon as the water boils, remove the pan from the heat, cover it, and let the eggs sit in the water for 10 minutes. As they sit, fill a large bowl with about 4 cups of water and 2 cups of ice cubes.

3
Using a slotted spoon, transfer the eggs one by one to the ice water and let them sit for exactly 5 minutes.

4
Remove the eggs from the ice water and, starting at the wider end, gently remove the shells. It helps to tap the egg first on a counter surface and roll it back and forth several times before removing the shell.

Pork Roast Stuffed with Bacon and Black Mission Figs

 

In This Chapter

Fillet Francis

Brawny Bacon Beef Bourguignon

Bacon Brisket and Beer Chili

Osso Buco with Orange and Lemon Gremolata

Pork Roast Stuffed with Bacon and Black Mission Figs

Pork Tenderloin with Bacon, Fennel, and Carrots

Saltimbacon

Cathy Erway’s Twice-Cooked Bacon with Celery and Leeks

Grilled Midnight Moon and Bacon Sandwich

A Perfect BLAT (Bacon, Lettuce, Avocado, and Tomato)

If you tried to isolate exactly what it is that makes cooked meat so attractive and downright irresistible you would probably end up with a list of the qualities that define bacon: crisp, salty, fatty, slightly funky (in a good way), and brimming with umami flavor. Really, for human beings, bacon is like culinary catnip. It can transform a delicious piece of meat into a morsel of divinity. Okay, maybe that’s a little bit over the top, but bacon really amps up the pleasure of every cooked critter. In a quickly cooked dish like Argentine grill master Francis Mallmann’s beef tournedos, chunks of fillet mignon wrapped in bacon and sage are quickly seared, resulting in the ultimate in savoriness.

At the other end of the spectrum—that is to say, a slowly cooked dish with a long list of ingredients—Bacon Brisket and Beer Chili makes for complexity of flavor and super intensity. Our Pork Roast Stuffed with Bacon and Black Mission Figs includes bacon for a “pig plus pig” pièce de résistance. Osso buco, an Italian family classic, is now something we would never think of making without bacon. Unctuous, smoky, and herbaceous, both the name, osso buco, and the finished dish are a mellifluous mouthful. Finally, from the modern métier of blogging the always resourceful and creative Cathy Erway rings some changes on a classic Taiwanese stir-fry.

Serves 4

Francis Mallmann is the dean of South America’s chefs. Trained in the greatest kitchens of France, his evolution as a chef took him back to the rustic wood-fired cookery of his Patagonian heritage. Here he solves the problem inherent in filet mignon: wonderful texture, not much taste. By wrapping the tournedos (one-inch-thick rounds of beef fillet) in fresh sage and bacon he adds layers of flavor and even more succulence to the meat—an easy and impressive dish.

4 beef tournedos (fillets 1 inch thick and about 5 ounces each)

16 fresh sage leaves

4 slices slab bacon (each about ⅛ inch thick, 1 inch wide, and long enough to wrap around a tournedo), or 4 slices lightly smoked bacon

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1
Pat the tournedos dry with paper towels. Press 4 sage leaves on the side of each piece of fillet, spacing them evenly. Wrap a slice of bacon around each tournedo so that it holds the sage leaves against the meat. Tie the bacon in place with butcher’s string.

2
Heat a large cast-iron skillet over high heat until it starts to smoke and a drop of water sizzles on the surface. Season the tournedos with salt and pepper to taste and place them in the hot skillet on their bacon-wrapped sides.

3
Cook the tournedos without moving them until the bacon is well charred, 1½ to 2 minutes. Rotate the tournedos a quarter turn and cook until that portion of bacon is crisped, then repeat the rotation 2 more times so the bacon is nicely crisped all around.

4
Place the tournedos on a flat side and cook until done to taste, 2 to 3 minutes per side for medium-rare. Transfer the tournedos to a platter and let them rest for 3 minutes. Remove and discard the strings before serving the tournedos.

Serves 6

If you have made more than one beef stew in your life, chances are that sometimes you have ended up with delicious but tough, overcooked meat. It’s hard to avoid. We’ve found that slicing a collagen-rich cut, such as chuck, into large chunks (2 to 3 inches) allows the meat to braise without overcooking as the deep, rich wine sauce permeates the meat. While it’s possible to make a beef and wine stew with any red wine, there is something about the pinot noir grape (from which red Burgundies are made) that is almost reminiscent of the heady smell of bacon. Both have many of the same characteristics: a flavor that accents meatiness. Food scientists say that what is happening here is that red wine, bacon, tomato paste, and beef all have a form of umami, the elusive taste that means “yummy” in Japanese.

Quite a few fancier versions of this dish call for wrapping the vegetables, garlic, and herbs in cheesecloth and removing them from the stew at the end of the cooking. We leave them in the stew so that their flavors and textures play off the intense meat flavors. You can make the stew without the pearl onions and mushrooms the day before you plan on serving it. Refrigerate the stew overnight and the next day, about 30 minutes before dinner, reheat it in a 250˚F oven until warmed through. Then prepare the onions and mushrooms and add them to the stew.

For the beef stew

5 slices thick-cut bacon, cut into ¼- to ½-inch pieces

4 pounds boneless beef chuck roast or top blade, cut into 2- to 3-inch chunks (see Notes)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for browning the beef, if necessary

1 bottle (750 milliliters) pinot noir or red Burgundy

2 large carrots, trimmed, peeled, and coarsely chopped

1 large leek, white and pale green parts only, rinsed well and chopped

1½ cups chopped onion (about 1 large onion)

3 medium-size cloves garlic, minced

2 teaspoons tomato paste

2 bay leaves

½ teaspoon dried thyme

2 tablespoons chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

1 cup low-sodium beef or chicken stock (see Notes)

3 tablespoons unbleached all-purpose flour

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

For the pearl onions and mushrooms

40 frozen pearl onions

½ cup low-sodium beef or chicken stock, or ½ cup water (see Notes)

2 tablespoons (¼ stick) unsalted butter

½ teaspoon sugar

Pinch of salt

12 ounces button or cremini mushrooms (each about 1 inch in diameter), stems trimmed, mushrooms wiped clean

2 to 3 tablespoons brandy

For serving

Buttered egg noodles

Minced fresh flat-leaf parsley

French bread

1
Make the beef stew: Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until browned and crisp, 7 to 10 minutes, stirring often and adjusting the heat as necessary. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate to drain, leaving all of the bacon fat in the skillet.

2
Preheat the oven to 300˚F.

3
Season the beef with salt and pepper to taste. Heat the bacon fat in the skillet over medium-high heat until it is hot but not smoking. Add as many beef chunks as will fit in the skillet in a single layer, leaving some room between each chunk to facilitate browning. Brown the meat, turning the chunks once or twice with tongs, until they are well crusted on all sides, 5 to 6 minutes. Transfer the browned chunks to a large Dutch oven. Repeat with the remaining chunks of beef (if you need more fat for browning, add a little olive oil to the skillet).

4
When all of the beef is browned, pour off any fat remaining in the skillet. Add 1 cup of the wine, let it come to a simmer, and deglaze the skillet by scraping up the brown bits from the bottom with a wooden spoon. Pour the wine mixture over the beef in the Dutch oven and add the drained bacon.

5
Heat the 2 tablespoons of olive oil in the same large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the carrots, leek, and chopped onion and cook, stirring often, until the vegetables are lightly browned, 5 to 7 minutes. Stir in the garlic and cook until fragrant, 1 to 2 minutes. Transfer the vegetables to the Dutch oven. Add the tomato paste, bay leaves, thyme, parsley, 1 cup of beef or chicken stock, the remaining wine, and just enough water to barely cover the meat. Stir to combine. Cover the Dutch oven, set it on the stove over medium-high heat, and let the stew come to a simmer. Then place the Dutch oven in the oven and bake the stew until the meat is nearly tender, about 1 hour and 20 to 30 minutes.

6
Blend the flour and the 3 tablespoons of butter in a small bowl to make a paste to thicken the stew. Remove the stew from the oven and set it on the stove over medium heat. Don’t turn off the oven. Stir the flour and butter mixture into the stew 1 teaspoonful at a time and let the stew come to a simmer. Taste for seasoning, adding more salt and pepper as necessary. Return the stew to the oven and bake, uncovered, until the meat is fork-tender but not falling apart, about 30 minutes (avoid overcooking the meat, which will dry it out). Remove and discard the bay leaves. If the stew is still too liquid, using a slotted spoon, transfer the beef to a medium-size bowl. Set the Dutch oven over medium-high heat and let the liquid simmer until it is reduced to the consistency of heavy cream. Return the beef to the Dutch oven and cover the pot. Remove it from the heat and continue with the recipe.

7
Prepare the pearl onions and mushrooms: Combine the pearl onions, ½ cup of stock or water, 2 tablespoons of butter, the sugar, and a pinch of salt in a large skillet and let come to a boil over high heat. Cover the skillet, reduce the heat to medium, and cook until the onions are tender, about 5 minutes. Uncover the skillet, increase the heat to high, and let simmer until the liquid is nearly all evaporated, about 3 minutes. Add the mushrooms and cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid they release evaporates and the mushrooms and onions are lightly browned, 5 to 8 minutes.