RogueChef
“It IS all about the TASTE”
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Bacon Caramels
Spoken prior :
Sarah Hepola, on Salon.com, suggests that eating bacon in the modern, health-conscious world is an act of rebellion,
“Loving bacon is like shoving a middle finger in the face of all that is healthy and holy while an unfiltered cigarette smolders between your lips.”
Evidently my eldest has a true rebellion going on, with the latest being bacon caramels.. Sweet, salty, soft and crunchy with a hint of smoke from the bacon. But as a 1/4 oz bite of this goes for upto $6.00, I’ll look to making my own.
Perhaps I’ll use my own double or triple smoked bacon. (Bacon that has been cold smoked, rested and then smoked again.) If one does not have access to these things, a slab of bacon, thick cut and brushed with liquid smoke is a passable substitute.
We know bacon makes everything taste good, just like bourbon, bacon and bourbon will make linoleum tiles taste wonderful. (Depending on the amount of bacon and bourbon.) So for that extra roguechef twist, a bit of bacon, a bit of bourbon, and some of my roasted pecans, to round out the taste / texture experience.
Wikipedia says:
Caramel candy is a soft, dense, chewy candy made by boiling a mixture of milk or cream, sugar, butter, vanilla essence, and (more common in commercial production) glucose or corn syrup. It can also be made with chocolate. It is not heated above the firm ball stage ((250 °F), so there is almost no caramelization. This type of candy is often called milk caramel.
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Bacon Jam
My eldest daughter found a most intriguing, tantalizing and unusual “condiment” in one of the arcade kiosks around the city.
Bacon jam. At first I was rather skeptical, even had a bit of an “eww” moment, but after a taste on a toasted English muffin along with a fried egg, I was. “In Hog Heaven!”. A sweet, salty, smokey, crisp and with a hint of heat from some form of pepper taste that seems to be a mix between bacon and potted meat from my youth.
I can see this on toasted bread with a slice of fresh tomato, and a piece of lettuce as a quick BLT, a tablespoon swirled into a bowl of pinto beans, or maybe a bit on the top of a cheese burger for that unmistakable bacon cheese burger taste.
Unfortunately, from the price it seemed to be gold jam, or puree of diamond dust. If I want that taste, I’ll have to make it myself.
As for bacon Sarah Hepola, on Salon.com, suggests that eating bacon in the modern, health-conscious world is an act of rebellion,
“Loving bacon is like shoving a middle finger in the face of all that is healthy and holy while an unfiltered cigarette smolders between your lips.”
And I can go for that…
Wikipedia defines jam as:
Jam contains both fruit juice and pieces of the fruit’s (or vegetable’s) flesh, however some cookbooks define jam as cooked and gelled fruit (or vegetable) purees.
Properly, the term jam refers to a product made with whole fruit, cut into pieces or crushed. The fruit is heated with water and sugar to activate the pectin in the fruit. The mixture is then put into containers.
A lot of fruit in there but if I swapped the word bacon for fruit….
For my recipe I’ll add sweet onions cooked down to a caramelized syrup along with a couple of chipotle peppers, and garlic.
One could for that absolute Rogue Chef twist use, Smoked Carmel Bacon Chunks, for an added flavor boast.
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Pork Tenderloin Medallions in a Spice Rub
I am on my way to an undisclosed location in upstate New York. Of the many activities I will engage in there the most fulfilling is to cook a new and exciting dish for the lady of Bad Wolf Manor.
I have noticed that the local no-so-mega mart has pork tenderloin on sale.
Wikipedia says:
The pork tenderloin is a cut of pork. It is often sold as prepackaged products by large grocery stores. They are available plain (not seasoned) and with a marinade.
As with all quadrupeds, the tenderloin refers to the muscle along the central spine, ventral to the lumbar vertebrae. This is the most tender part of the animal, because these muscles are used for posture, rather than locomotion.
What they don’t say is that this is the quickest cooking cut of meat in existence, I’ve grilled entire loins in 15 minutes with a 5 minute rest. There is no bone and very little fat, and it will accept flavors like a sponge. It can be brined, (a method used here many times), it can be butterflied and stuffed, it can be glazed, it can be marinated but one needs to take care not to dissolve the meat in the marinade.
The one method I’ve not done is a spice rub.. So perhaps a herb rub, and wrap with plastic wrap overnight, perhaps with a bit of olive oil to help the fat soluble flavors liberate and penetrate. Then I’ll cut to say 1″ thick medallions, lube season and grill to ~ 150F, (~ 4 – 5 minutes a side). Serve up on a bun, sauce with a mustard bbq sauce, add a bit of Asian Slaw, and perhaps some grilled aubergine or peppers or both, or maybe just treat it like a “HAM” burger and add lettuce and tomato…
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Haming it up. (How to Smoke a ham)
During a recent telephone call with a friend / client, I was asked. “Have you ever smoked a ham?”. After a good bit of discussion, explanation, and digression, I promised to put together a post on how to smoke a fresh pork butt, and produce a ham that will taste 1000% better than anything in the store.
Fresh ham is an uncured hind leg of pork. Country ham is uncooked, cured, dried, smoked-or-unsmoked, made from a single piece of meat from the hind leg of a hog or from a single piece of meat from a pork shoulder (picnic ham).
But not all hams are as they are labeled…. (surprise, surprise, surprise..)
- A “ham” is a cured hind leg of pork that is at least 20.5% protein, and contains no added water.
- “Ham” can be legally applied to “turkey ham” if the meat is taken from the turkey thigh.
- If the ham has less than 20.5% but is at least 18.5% protein, it can be called “ham with natural juices”.
- A ham that is at least 17.0% protein and up to 10% added solution can be called “ham—water added”.
- A “ham and water product” refers to a cured hind leg of pork product that contains any amount of added water.
- A ham that has been cut into pieces and molded, must be labeled “sectioned and formed”
- A ham that has been coarsely ground and molded must be labeled “chunked and formed”.
- Sugar is common in many dry hams in the United States; it is used to cover the saltiness of a brine.
- The wet-cured ham in U.S. supermarkets has brine is injected into the meat for a very rapid curing.
- Traditional wet curing requires immersing the ham in a brine for an extended period, often followed by light smoking.
- A ‘smoked’ ham must have been smoked by hanging over burning wood chips in a smokehouse or an atomized spray of liquid smoke such that the product appearance is equivalent
- A “hickory-smoked” ham must have been smoked using only hickory.
- Hams with “smoke flavor” injected are not “smoked”and are labeled “smoke flavor added”.
- Hams can only be labeled “honey-cured” if honey was at least 50% of the sweetener used.
As always, If you read the label, and suspect the producer is trying to poison you, you would be right.
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fettuccine carbonara with spring peas
This is why I will die of chronic cholesterol. It is also why I will die happy…. For those of you who have read my post about hedonism, this is quite indulgent, and ooohhh so simple. There are many rewards to using only the freshest cream and butter, the finest of cheese, and the best of pasta. Truly, a RogueChef classic.
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Haluski
Crap! Three days of sun and 70′s, now rain and 50′s. My body aches from this hot/cold routine. The good thing is I get to try a dish mentioned to me by a friend. Even better I get to use a good bit of left overs from my bacon and colcannon post
A pan fry of bacon, onions, garlic, cabbage, and egg noodles. It can be served as a side dish or can include polish sausage and potato dumplings to make a full meal. I’ll add the sausage to this but will replace the potato dumplings with potatoes from the colcannon and use the last of the back bacon as well.
Do note, for a couple of friends, I did use beef sausage, turkey bacon and olive oil to produce a similar, kosher and quite tasty dish
The origin of this dish are quite cloudy, some people say Poland, some say Hungary, some say Germany, but it does appear to be a very tasty and substantial dish.
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Peach and Bourbon-Glazed Pork Tenderloin
Saturday, and time for my weekly special. While I am being diet conscious, one must remember the basics of this blog. AKA “It IS all about the TASTE”, which states:
I usually throw the counting / rationing away for ONE MEAL A WEEK, and that spend a good potion of time in the preparation of that meal. As the saying goes, “Getting there is half the fun.”
I have been eating like a monk and exercising like a horse, so this is my one splurge for the week.
Nothing spells special event like a roast. Roast Chicken on Sundays, Roast Pork / Ham on Easter, Roast Turkey on Thanksgiving, Roast Goose on Christmas, it is clear Roast is special event food. Since I’ve had my red meat for the week, I’ll roast a pork tenderloin. Before roasting I’ll brine in a Honey Bourbon Mustard mixture, just to hydrate and add that special Bad Wolf Taste twist.
Roasting Basics
For roasting, the food may be placed on a rack, in a roasting pan or, to ensure even application of heat. During oven roasting, hot air circulates around the meat, cooking all sides evenly.There are several theories for roasting meats correctly: low temperature cooking, high temperature cooking and a combination of both. Each method can be suitable under the appropriate circumstances.
- A low temperature oven, 95°C to 160°C (200°F to 325°F), is best when cooking with large cuts of meat, turkey and whole chickens. This is not technically roasting temperature, but we call it slow-roasting. The benefit of slow-roasting an item is less moisture loss and a more tender product. At true roasting temperatures, 200°C (400°F) or more, the water inside the muscle is lost at a high rate.
- Cooking at high temperatures is beneficial if the cut is small enough (filet mignon, strip loin) to be finished cooking before the juices escape.
- The combination method uses high heat just at either the beginning or the end of the cooking process, with most of the cooking at a low temperature. This method produces the golden brown texture and crust people desire but maintains more of the moisture than simply cooking at a high temperature, although the product will not be as moist as low temperature cooking the whole time. Searing and then turning down to low the piece of meat is also beneficial when a dark crust and caramelized flavor is desired for the finished product. Note that searing in no way “locks in” moisture – moisture loss is simply a function of heat and time.
For this event I’ll use a combination of methods, starting slow and then moving to a very hot oven, (my bread / pizza oven) to caramelize and finish off. To add in the last step I’ll apply a peach / bourbon glaze.
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Bacon and Colcanon, Real Irish Food
It is early spring, and that means St. Patrick’s day. If I seem a little underwhelmed by the holiday, you will have to excuse me, it is not the holiday, it is all the trappings. Great rowdy, drunken crowds whose sole claim to to being Irish is that they wear a “Kiss Me I’m Irish” button on St. Patties day, and stand around on street corners swilling poor quality beer with green food coloring…
While the above is rather annoying, the true tragedy of Saint Patrick’s day is the crime of foisting American corned beef and cabbage off as being Irish.
The New England boiled dinner is a traditional New England meal, consisting of corned beef or a smoked “picnic ham” shoulder, with cabbage and added vegetable items, often including potato, rutabaga, parsnip, carrot, white turnip and onion. When using a beef roast, this meal is often known simply as corned beef and cabbage even with the addition of other vegetables.
Corned beef and cabbage is perhaps the most common form. Although not a traditional Irish meal, it has become a part of Irish-American culture and is often related (Mistakenly) to Irish holidays such as Saint Patrick’s Day. In Ireland, the closest traditional dish is Bacon and Cabbage (more akin to Canadian style bacon or ham). Corned beef and cabbage became popular in America after Irish immigrants in the eastern United States used corned beef instead of pork in their traditional dish.
Bacon and Cabbage seems to be associated with St. Patrick’s Day, I love the combination of potatoes, cabbage, onion and bacon all through the cooler months of Fall and Winter!
The dish consists of boiled or braised bacon (this refers to Back Bacon, almost a loin of bacon which is cured and/or smoked. It does not refer to sliced bacon or rashers which one might fry) served with boiled cabbage and potatoes.
The dish continues to be a very common meal in Ireland. There are many different variations on the theme of bacon and cabbage, but in general the dish tends to involve slicing the back bacon after it has been well cooked and serving it with whole boiled potatoes and boiled cabbage.
The dish usually calls for butter for the potatoes (which are often mashed with the cabbage). The potatoes and cabbage prepared in this manner are severed with a white sauce and are often called colcannon
The bacon used for the meal can vary somewhat depending on individual preference. Usually Back Bacon is used for the recipe, but other cuts of bacon are sometimes preferred. However, the bacon used is almost always cured.
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