Bacon Nation: 125 Irresistible Recipes (20 page)
Read Bacon Nation: 125 Irresistible Recipes Online
Authors: Peter Kaminsky,Marie Rama
1
Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 400˚F.
2
Cook the bacon in a medium-size skillet over medium heat until the bacon is lightly browned and most of the fat is rendered, 5 to 8 minutes, stirring often and adjusting the heat as necessary. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate to drain, reserving the bacon fat in the skillet.
3
Cut off and discard the top of the head of garlic to expose the cloves, then generously brush the exposed cloves with some of the bacon fat. Wrap the head of garlic in aluminum foil and bake the garlic until the cloves are tender, about 35 minutes. Let the garlic cool until slightly warm, 5 to 10 minutes.
4
Squeeze the garlic cloves from their skins into a medium-size mixing bowl and mash them well with a fork. Add the mayonnaise, cider vinegar, and drained bacon and stir to blend well. Season the aioli with salt and pepper to taste. Cover the aioli and refrigerate it for a few hours to let the flavors bloom before using. The aioli can be refrigerated, covered, for up to 1 week.
The BLT—Deconstructed and reConstructed
A BLT is simple to make but, like anything truly delicious, demands the best ingredients. The bread must be toasted and its thickness carefully considered. If it’s too thick, you’ll miss that sublime experience of biting into the sandwich and tasting all its delicious layers at once. Some people insist on using white packaged sandwich bread, the kind that has a soft, tight crumb to absorb some of the tomato’s wonderful juices. We like a multigrain bread for its firmness and flavor, but even a thinly sliced brioche can work.
Buy the best bacon you can find. If you prefer it to have a little chewiness, choose a thick-sliced bacon. If you like a crisp and crunchy contrast to the tomato slices, choose one that’s thinly sliced. Since bacon is the main feature in this production, here’s your chance to audition different artisanal bacons. Try a whiskey barrel–smoked or a black pepper–rubbed bacon.
The canonical BLT calls for using iceberg lettuce, but this recipe, like so many others, is always being fiddled with and improved upon by inventive cooks. Follow your muse here. Use whatever greens you fancy: Red leaf lettuce is lovely. Boston lettuce offers a creamy contrast to the toasted bread. Romaine, which we favor, adds crunch. Arugula or watercress are wonderful for the way that their sharpness counterbalances the broad flavors of bacon.
Find the very best summer tomatoes for your BLT. We recommend using ripe, firm, locally grown tomatoes for their unique floral scent. Never refrigerate a quality ripe tomato; that diminishes its flavor. Store tomatoes away from the sun and use them within a couple of days of purchase.
Brawnier Birds
In This Chapter
Robert Wiedmaier’s Coq au Vin A la Bruxelles
Chicken Tagine with Bacon, Butternut Squash, and Prunes
Chicken Marsala with Bacon and Sage
Velvety Chicken with Rosemary-Bacon Biscuit Topping
Roast Cornish Game Hens with Mushroom and Bacon Brandy Stuffing
Of all the political promises ever made, “a chicken in every pot” is perhaps the most practical and friendliest. Anyone who puts a chicken in your pot and fills the house with the seductive scent of a flavorful hen and aromatic vegetables is our kind of candidate (provided he or she comes through on that promise). Throw bacon into that pot and you amp up the flavor, unctuousness, and succulence of your bird immeasurably. A free-range organic chicken has a nutty, buttery flavor that plays well off of the taste and texture of bacon. Come to think of it, even a so-so chicken is kind of fun when you add bacon to the mix, whether it’s the crispier, tastier coq au vin that our friend, the great chef Robert Wiedmaier, achieves with his Belgian version or the brawnier Chicken Cacciatore we have reinterpreted here.
From the Moroccan part of the world we have taken the liberty to add bacon to a softly sweet and fruity tagine in the hope that our departure from the no-bacon strictures of North African cuisine will be forgiven because it’s so darn good. Basically every culture has a dish with chicken as a base and deeply flavored fruits, veggies, and spices. Season it with bacon and you are just adding to the pleasure.
Serves 4
A wonderful dish to anticipate as the house fills with the aroma of chicken, bacon, and herbs, this is a recipe that smells like Sunday—a lazy, peaceful Sunday afternoon. Lots of recipes call for tucking gobs of butter under the chicken’s skin before roasting it. Conventional cooking wisdom holds that the butter bastes the breast meat and keeps it from drying out. What really happens is the butter quickly melts and rather than moistening the meat, it pools at the bottom of the roasting pan. Instead of using butter, we tuck raw bacon, herbs, garlic, fresh ginger, and salt and pepper under the chicken skin. As it cooks, the bacon provides “time-release” fat and seasoning that is absorbed in the breast meat.
The medley of brussels sprouts and potatoes in the pan caramelizes and puts the pan drippings to delicious use. Also, we butterfly the raw chicken by removing the bird’s backbone before roasting. This allows the chicken’s thighs to lie flat over the roasting pan for even cooking. Butterflying also makes it easier to carve the roasted chicken.
4 slices bacon, diced
4 medium-size cloves garlic, minced
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
2 teaspoons minced fresh rosemary leaves
2 to 3 teaspoons minced peeled fresh ginger
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 whole organic chicken (4 to 4¼ pounds)
Vegetable oil cooking spray or olive oil, for oiling the broiler pan
12 small (about golf ball-size) red-skinned potatoes, scrubbed and cut in half lengthwise
12 to 14 brussels sprouts, trimmed and cut in half lengthwise if wider than 1 inch
1 small yellow onion, cut in quarters
1 tablespoon plus 2 teaspoons extra-virgin olive oil
1
Combine the bacon, garlic, thyme, rosemary, ginger, ⅛ teaspoon of salt, and pepper to taste in a small mixing bowl and set the bacon and herb seasoning mixture aside.
2
Rinse the chicken under cold running water and pat it dry with paper towels. Butterfly the chicken by placing it, breast side down, on a large cutting board and, using a pair of poultry shears, cutting through the bones on both sides of the backbone. Remove and discard the backbone. Trim any excess fat off the chicken. Turn the chicken over and use your hand to press the breastbone down and flatten the bird.
3
Slip your fingers between the skin and breast meat to loosen the skin. You might find it easier to slip a sharp boning knife under the skin to separate it from the meat. Spoon half of the bacon and herb seasoning mixture under the skin on each side of the breast, working it down toward the legs. (Set the remaining bacon and herb mixture aside.) Using your fingers and working on the outside of the chicken, press down on the skin to distribute the seasonings evenly over the breast and into the thigh areas. If you have the time, at this point refrigerate the chicken, uncovered, for 8 to 24 hours (see Note); refrigerate the remaining bacon and herb mixture separately, covered. Let the chicken come to room temperature before proceeding with the recipe.
4
Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 450˚F. Line the bottom of a deep broiler pan with aluminum foil and spray it with vegetable oil cooking spray or brush it with olive oil.
5
Place the potatoes, brussels sprouts, and onion in the aluminum foil-lined broiler pan. Drizzle 1 tablespoon of the olive oil over the vegetables, tossing them to coat. Arrange the vegetables cut side down in the pan. Sprinkle the reserved bacon and herb mixture evenly over the top of the vegetables and season them lightly with salt and pepper.
6
Place the broiling rack in the pan over the vegetables and place the chicken on the rack skin side up. Rub the chicken breast, wings, and legs with the remaining 2 teaspoons of olive oil.
7
Bake the chicken until lightly browned, about 20 minutes, then rotate the broiler pan 180 degrees so the back of the pan faces the front of the oven. Continue baking the chicken until the skin is golden brown and an instant-read meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of a thigh, but not touching a bone, registers 165˚F, 15 to 20 minutes longer.
8
Transfer the chicken to a cutting board. Using a flat metal spatula, transfer the potatoes and brussels sprouts to a serving platter. Cut the chicken into pieces and serve with the vegetables and any juices.
Note:
We recommend air-drying the raw chicken in the refrigerator, uncovered, for 8 hours or overnight after you have inserted the bacon and herb mixture under its skin. This allows the surface moisture to evaporate so that when the chicken roasts the skin becomes quite crisp and browned, and it also allows the bacon and herbs to infuse the bird with more flavor. Before putting it in the oven, remove the chicken from the refrigerator about 1 hour ahead to let it come to room temperature.
Serves 5
For most of us, coq au vin is a braised chicken dish that we first ordered in an old-fashioned French restaurant—not a fancy one but, instead, a place that served the kind of food that French grandmas made. Or, for millions of aspiring American home cooks, Julia Child’s coq au vin may be the most popular recipe in her classic Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
Julia’s is a great recipe, but this version by Robert Wiedmaier, a Belgian American who is one of the greatest chefs in Washington, D.C., blew us away when we tried it at his restaurant Brasserie Beck. Rather than thickening his wine sauce with a roux, Robert reduces it to achieve intensity of flavor. The combination of bacon and thyme is truly thrilling.
1 organic chicken (4½ pounds), cut into 10 pieces (see the facing page)
4¼ cups cabernet sauvignon
2 tablespoons Ghent or Dijon mustard
8 ounces slab bacon, rind removed (see
page 57
)
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
½ pound white pearl onions, peeled
1 pound white button mushrooms, stems trimmed, mushrooms wiped clean
Unbleached all-purpose flour, for dredging the chicken
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 cup low-sodium chicken stock, or more if necessary
2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves
¼ cup finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
1
Trim any excess fat off the chicken pieces. Rinse the chicken pieces under cold running water and pat them dry with paper towels. Place the chicken in a large deep bowl. Place ¼ cup of the cabernet sauvignon and the mustard in a small bowl or measuring cup and stir to mix. Pour this mixture over the chicken and add the remaining 4 cups of cabernet. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate the chicken for 24 hours.
2
Remove the chicken from the marinade, setting aside the marinade. Pat the pieces of chicken dry with paper towels. Set the chicken aside.
3
Make the lardons: Cut the slab of bacon crosswise into slices about ½ inch thick. Stack 2 slices and cut them lengthwise into ½-inch-thick strips. Finally, cut the slices crosswise into lardons about 1 inch long.
4
Place the butter and olive oil in a large Dutch oven and set it over medium-high heat. When the butter has melted, add the lardons and onions and cook until they are lightly browned, 7 to 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. (A pair of tongs is useful for turning the lardons and onions to facilitate even browning.) Add the mushrooms and cook until the lardons and onions are cooked through and the mushrooms are lightly browned, 7 to 8 minutes, stirring occasionally. Reduce the heat to medium if at any time the lardon mixture browns too quickly. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the lardons, onions, and mushrooms to a medium-size mixing bowl and set them aside. Reserve the fat in the Dutch oven.