the SIMMER blog

bacon and the perfect date

I wouldn't say bacon makes everything better, but it can easily take a dish from good to great, and in most cases a dish is better off with it than without it. I had a great appetizer last week at one of my favorite restaurants that combined pancetta (bacon Italiano) with grilled peaches, duck stock, a balsamic-type condiment called saba, and mascarpone cheese. SO GOOD.

And yet, there are whispers around the interwebs about whether bacon has jumped the shark, since there are foodie folks who will analyze every single aspect of food preparation/sourcing/eating/policy into the ground if you let them. I've been known to overanalyze a few things in my time, but I've got a pretty live-and-let-live attitude when it comes to food. What else would you expect from someone whose average month's consumption includes Lean Pockets and seared ahi tuna, foie gras and Cheetos, coq au vin and hoagies? I've got no soapbox.

Bacon is what you make of it, and what you make with it. We don't need to analyze it more than that.

My favorite appetizer -- a standby for parties at our house -- is the bacon-wrapped date, a perfect little package of sweet-salty-creamy warmth. As with many of my recipes, it doesn't have to be followed too exactly. Some kind of cheese, some kind of date, some kind of bacon. A little time in the oven. Some kind of wonderful.

It starts, as many great things do, with five little words: first, you take some cheese.

(this one is a Cambozola, or Oregonzola, or one of those -zolas)

The classic way to make these is to mix crumbled bleu cheese with mascarpone for just the right mix of pungent sweetness and pipe the mixture into the center of the pitted dates from a bag with a cut-off corner, but that can be tricky. If the bleu cheese crumbles are too big, they'll clog your piping bag. If the temperature is too cold, the stuff won't squeeze. If it's too warm, it'll go liquid. For that reason, if this is your first time out, you may want to cut slim sticks of a softish cheese instead, and just tuck those straight into the dates. The -zola above was fine, though I left most of it in the fridge while I worked, since it went soft quickly. What you really want is a cheese that doesn't melt until it gets hot. Mozzarella, muenster, provolone, these would all work. Gruyere, maybe. Parmesan, no.

Once the dates are filled, all you have to do is wrap bacon around the outside, cutting off the excess part of the strip (the sharper your knife the better) and using it for the next date, securing the end of the bacon with a toothpick as you go.

(you'll figure out quickly how much bacon it takes to wrap each date; these are each about 1/3 of a strip of Niman Ranch bacon from Trader Joe's)

These are also great for a party since you can do this step the night before, store them in the fridge overnight covered in plastic wrap, and then pop them into the oven 10 minutes or so before guests arrive. Bake in a 400-degree oven on a rimmed cookie sheet covered in foil -- these throw off a lot of grease and you don't want to set your oven on fire. Not that I've ever done that. While making these, anyway. (Don't ask me about the musakhan.)

Bake a few minutes on each side, turning with tongs. It'll be obvious when they're ready -- the bacon crisps up and shrinks in, pulling the whole package into a compact bite. If the bacon still looks flabby, leave them in a little longer.

Note: do not serve at a party with vegetarians in attendance, as this makes your whole house smell like OMG SO MUCH BACON, and that's just rude.

 

Sadly, I do not have any pictures of these actually cooked, since once they're out of the oven, they never last very long.

 

 

when fewer is more

Now that my television and I are happily reunited, I blitzed through a "Top Chef" marathon and am completely caught up to the current episode. Some great talent this season, and of course I'm particularly proud of Jennifer from 10 Arts here in Philly, who is tearing. it. up. Go Jen!

The show is set in Vegas this season, and they're doing a lot with that theme, throwing around poker chips and dice and showgirls, and yes, it's cheesy, but it's also fun. And it led to a very interesting Quickfire, where the chefs rolled dice to determine the number of ingredients they'd be using in their dish. (Oil, salt, and pepper were free.)

Now, initially I thought they'd all want to roll high numbers, because it seemed like they were rolling for a maximum number. But no. When the chefs started rolling nines and tens and complaining about it, the real challenge became clear: they were rolling for an exact number. No more, no less.

No one rolled a two, but it got me thinking: how few ingredients is too few? Could I make something with two ingredients, plus salt and pepper? Of course I could. Two is enough, as long as one of them is bacon.

This is how the McHenrys do green beans. Yes, I see the whole appeal of the tender-crisp cooking style for vegetables, where you let the vegetable express itself. I do that sometimes. Sometimes? I quash the vegetable's freedom of expression with the smoky richness of bacon and cook the beans themselves to army green.

And it is SO good.

Cut three or four slices of bacon in small pieces and brown in the bottom of a heavy pot. Snap the green beans (about two pounds will do) into one-inch lengths and rinse. The water that clings to the beans should be enough, but have a little extra on hand just in case. When the bacon is brown and the fat is rendered out, toss the beans in, stir it up, slap the lid on, and cook for about an hour over very low heat, stirring occasionally. If it gets too dry add that extra water, but really, it's pretty Zen.

I've tried fancying this up with pancetta instead of bacon, or adding herbs like thyme. Don't do that. That's not what these beans are about.

Beans. Bacon. Salt and pepper. Two plus two.

Equals yum.

 

mmmmmom nom nom

I was away from the computer on Mother's Day, but all this week, I've been reading great mompreciation pieces, from journalists and bloggers and whathaveyou, like this awesome column from Michelle Von Euw over at Intrepid. And though for privacy reasons I don't like to natter on too much about my nearest and dearest on the blog, I figured it was worth taking a moment to celebrate my own mom, who is wonderful and brilliant and simply the best mom I could ask for. If it weren't for her I wouldn't know how to make spritz, or spaghetti sauce, or whiskey cookies, or Cornish pasties, or, well, anything.

Of course on Mother's Day itself, we were making pierogi:

Tasty Ukrainian (mom's dad's side of the family) pillows of soft dough, filled with potatoes and cheese. Boiled, then sauteed in lots of butter. Served with sour cream. I would have taken a picture of a cut one so you could see the filling, but... we were too busy eating. How about a close-up instead?

And one of the kielbasa we served with it so it wasn't a 100%-carb meal (not that I would have minded that one bit.) 

 

Food is love, you know.

what i did on my summerish vacation

Oh yeah, you guessed it. I ate. And ate and ate... and cooked!... but mostly ate.

 

(in case you're wondering, the ribs were fabulous but the brisket was a little dry; and yes, it did taste better for being served outdoors under a tentish thing in a parking lot next to a gas station just off the highway)

I'm thinking of starting up a new "make vs. buy" feature on the blog. There've been a couple articles about the relative cost of making or buying everything from bagels to crackers to bread to cheese. Why am I mentioning this now? Because the make vs. buy decision on barbecue is definitely, definitely make... if you have my father around to make it. Otherwise, and especially for us yardless, grill-less urbanites, jury's still out.

Guinness week: the pork

(my apologies to anyone who tuned in for a Wordless Wednesday and is disappointed to see actual words; I needed to fit in as much Guinness as possible this week since it's themey!)

So this was one of the recipes that set me off on the "I need to make an entire Guinness-themed menu" tear. It's from Braise, a Daniel Boulud cookbook... and it's actually the first recipe I've made from Braise, since I usually can't see past All About Braising when I'm looking for something to cook low and slow.

Pork Shoulder With Dried Cherries, Guinness, and Sweet Potatoes.

I really went back and forth on the sweet potatoes. I thought they would make the whole business just too sweet. But I stuck with the published recipe and they're definitely a nice addition. Keep them in large chunks and add them two hours from the end, and they get soft but don't fall apart, and get nice and dark with the stout/molasses/balsamic sauce on the outside.

I used an 8.5 pound picnic shoulder where the recipe only calls for 5.5 since that was the smallest one they had on hand at Giunta's. An extra hour or so in the oven and it all turned out fine. Though I did have to switch my cookware partway through when the combination of 8.5 lbs of meat + 7 cups of liquid + 3 sliced onions proved too much for my Le Creuset in two respects: there literally wasn't enough room to add the two pounds of sweet potatoes, and the full pot was so heavy it was bending my oven rack. Yeesh.

  

(before cooking, and after an hour)

So I swapped it into the Great Big Roasting Pan, and in the end we had one of those great big medieval Joint Of Meat situations again. And a very kind guest who agreed to do the carving.

And we had full bellies and big smiles after.

enchiladas (un poco mas)

Okay, one more, then I'll shut up about enchiladas for a while.

Things I have put in enchiladas:

• canned black beans with shredded chicken and roasted red peppers

• Rancho Gordo yellow-eye beans, leeks, and leftover tarragon cream sauce

• homemade ropa vieja with leftover frozen Trader Joe's lentils

• BBQ chicken and homemade refried beans

• frozen corn and white sweet potatoes

• Rancho Gordo Christmas Limas and braised scallions

• leftover pot roast and fresh tomatillos

Things I would totally try putting in enchiladas given half a chance:

• pork shoulder cooked in sriracha and garlic (this is how I braise chicken thighs)

• string cheese

• leftover fried chicken (deboned)

• duck

• white beans and bacon

• did I mention string cheese? just, like, a whole slab of it.

Obviously there are also various amounts and types of garlic, hot peppers, cheeses, chili powders, and whatnot involved. And there's no reason the sauce has to be tomato sauce, but that's generally how it goes.

out and about

SIMMER is out on submission. I am freaking.

Also, coming soon: enchiladas.

Sunday I made this recipe for roast pork loin with tarragon, mustard, and cream. Though, being me, I didn't make it exactly as written. Pork chops instead of pork roast, garlic instead of shallots, and dried tarragon instead of fresh. Though I don't usually sub dried herbs for fresh, except in the case of rosemary or thyme. But the Penzey's tarragon is really good quality and rehydrates into nice big sprinkles, so a teaspoon of that added with the butter and garlic to the pan I browned the pork chops in resulted in a delicious sauce with just the right amount of herbiness in its creaminess.

Then again, any recipe that calls for a cup of heavy cream is pretty much bound to be good, right?