White Bean Soup with Bacon

I didn't set out for this to be a blog post, but I posted a picture on Facebook of the soup I made this nice cold weekend, and got some requests for the recipe, so here we go!

Soups and stews are nice for a number of reasons:
-- they're hardy and hearty
-- relatively inexpensive to make
-- don't require the precision that baking does, and are generally easy to halve, double, or make other changes (sometimes known as winging it)

This soup was from a blog post on a site called The Crazy Apron, and the original post is here. I thought that six cans of beans sounded like a bit much, and changed things along the way. I am quite happy with how mine came out, but don't be afraid to make some tweaks of your own.

White Bean Soup with Bacon, serves 4

6 ounces thick-cut bacon, chopped (I think a smoked ham hock would be very nice too)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon butter
1/2 medium yellow onion, diced
2 medium carrots, diced
2 celery stalks, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
2-3 sprigs fresh thyme
salt and pepper to taste
2 (15 ounces) cans white beans (I used great northerns), drained & rinsed
3 cups chicken stock/broth, warmed a bit
2 teaspoons lemon zest
1 tablespoon lemon juice

-- Heat a Dutch oven (at least 3 quarts) over medium heat.
-- Add bacon and cook until crisp; remove with slotted spoon & let drain on paper towel.
-- Remove all but 1 tablespoon of bacon grease, and of course save for another use!
-- Add olive oil and butter to bacon grease over medium heat.
-- Add onion, carrots, and celery; allow to soften for about 5 minutes.
-- Add garlic; let cook another 2 - 3 minutes until aromatic.
-- Add thyme, salt and pepper, beans, and about 2/3 the cooked bacon, stirring to combine.
-- Add broth; increase heat to high, and bring to a low boil.
-- Reduce heat to medium/medium low (whatever allows it to keep simmering gently), pot covered most of the way; stir occasionally and simmer for 30 minutes.
-- Remove thyme.
-- If you have an immersion (stick) blender, place it in the pot and blend about half the mixture; alternately, you can just mash with a potato masher, or if you really want to mash it, carefully ladle into half into a blender and puree.
-- Stir to combine, and return to heat for about 10 more minutes.
-- Remove from heat; add lemon zest and juice.
-- Ladle into individual serving bowls, and serve with reserved bacon on top; great with crusty garlic bread.

Bacon

It's pretty hard to go wrong with a place named Bacon.

From the door handle....

.....to the merchandise available for purchase....

...to the helpful eye chart on the back of the menu (you must be in good health to eat here!).....

 ... to the food (more on that in a sec), Bacon is a happenin' place.

I pick Sunday morning brunch as my first time to go visit Bacon. Fortunately, we were only a party of two, so it wasn't difficult to sit, because the place was certainly hopping. (Hard to believe this was the old Basil's restaurant, and more recently, the Screaming Goat.) You order at the bar/counter, you get your number so the food runners can find you, and find a seat. Both the gal taking our order and the guys running the food were super-friendly, and they all seemed genuinely nice, not just people working another service job.

I had the biscuits and gravy, which were really outstanding (yes, almost as good as my own!). The biscuits are large, and nice and fluffy, meaning the dough wasn't overworked. Good pieces of bacon in the gravy, and no wimpy chive garnish here!

And the corn fritters with bacon aioli. The fritters were ok. I think it's canned corn, and while they were nice and golden, there wasn't a ton of taste to them by themselves. The aioli was the one real disappointment of the meal. It tastes artificial, and I would almost bet they're using the Bacon Mayo, which I've had before, and hated it because it was entirely artificial. Fritters were better when dipped in gravy!

My friend had the butter lettuce salad with bacon and bleu cheese. (REALLY? I am getting b & g, and she's eating a salad?? Whatever.) Have to say, it was one of the prettiest salads, with what looked like a whole head of butter lettuce. Kind of your basic bleu cheese, but nice big pieces of bacon.

I've been the proud owner of a bacon wallet for about 4 years now; hard to tell in the picture, but it's one of the bacon memorabilia items available for sale. When I was paying for my food, the gal at the register commented "That's what inspired this whole restaurant idea!" A pretty good idea indeed! Now, if only someone can figure out how to make the wallet SMELL like bacon........

More Porkalicious Happenings!

You know it's going to be *March Madness* in Austin whenever SXSW (and the rodeo and the high school basketball playoffs) rolls into town, but this year, we're taking things to a higher level! Not one, but TWO pork cookoff challenges! 

In my previous post, I mentioned the Bacon Takedown, happening Sunday, March 13th at 3 pm at Emo's (603 Red River).

And there's also the Pork Experiment, also on Sunday, March 13th from 12 - 4:30pm at Club DeVille (900 Red River).  So pick which part of the pig you like best, and get busy! Unusual ingredients are welcomed in the Pork Experiment throw down, but in whatever you make, pork must be represented. There will be awards for fan and judges favorites, and prizes include a delicious pork party for ten of your closest porcine friends at Franklin BBQ! See their website to enter or to buy tickets.

I am going to whine a little here, because I will be out of town, so someone better attend these events and report back to me!!  I do heart me some pork!

Bacon Fat Shortbread

Well, duh. You don't expect me to throw away the liquid molten gold that is created when you cook bacon, now do you? There's been a lovely little jar in my fridge, collecting the drippings. I actually don't use it all that much, but a little touch here and there really can boost the flavor of certain dishes. Then I came across a recipe on another blog -- see the original post here -- for bacon fat shortbread cookies. OMG!

I decided to tweak it a little, and what developed was shortbread bars, with hibiscus sea salt. If you've read some of my previous posts, you'd heard my affinity for sweet & salty flavors. This certainly hits that spot! The sweetness from sugars (both regular & brown), savory from the lovely bacon flavor, and salty from the touch of purplish hibiscus sea salt.....while I like the flavor the hibiscus gives, another good quality sea salt or fleur de sel would work.  If you're dying for the mouthwatering recipe, drop me a line..... I'll share! All in the name of bacon. Hmmm, wonder how this would be with some little bits of bacon IN it???

Makin' Bacon

Ahhh, the pig. What's not to love? And what's not exciting about the prospect of making your own bacon? Here's the tale of my experiment in makin' bacon.

When I was in Denver last week, we went to Savory Spice Shop, a local spice store. They had curing salt, also known as pink salt, which essentially is sodium nitrate, a natural preservative used for meat curing. (Celery is high in SN, and many natural hot dog & sausage makers will use straight up celery juice in their "curing" process... I think Applegate Farms is one.) I knew that I could buy SN online or at someplace local like Callahan's, but would probably have to buy a larger quantity than I would ever use in this lifetime. I was able to get 4 oz for about $2.....and I bought some extremely dark cocoa powder (smells like Oreos!), but we'll save that for another time!

The day after I got back, I went to Whole Foods for groceries, and while getting ground lamb for meatballs, I asked the butcher if they had any pork belly. He checked in the back, and lo and behold, he did! I asked for a pound, and asked if he had ever cured it before. He said he had cured other things, but not pork belly; he said you have to have a really sterile environment, and he has a separate fridge that he only uses for curing things. So I was slightly intimidated, but figured at only a pound of pork belly, I wasn't loosing much monetarily if I screwed this up. Furthermore, he looked high and low in all of his books, but couldn't find the proper code for pork belly, so he charged me only $1.99/lb..... I think the total was $2.14 for the little belly!
So got home and started Googling pork belly --> bacon recipes.... found out that for bacon, you really don't need the pink salt, as it was primarily used in the olden days to prevent botulism. I guess since the belly is cured, smoked, and then cooked in a skillet/oven, any chances of botulism are negated. However, if you're making various salumis, yes, use the sodium nitrate.

Looked at a variety of different recipes utilizing different techniques. After a few days, I just decided to go for it, and make it up as I went along, based on what I had read. So on Friday morning, I combined (again, just 1 lb. of belly here):
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 Tbsp. kosher salt
1 Tbsp. coarse ground black pepper
1/4 tsp. curing/pink salt (I decided just to use it anyway since I had it, it's certainly not going to hurt anything, especially at that small amount)
1/2 tsp. ground bay leaves
1/2 tsp. ground coriander...and then proceeded to slather all sides of the belly, and pop it into a ziplock bag.
And into the fridge for the next 2 1/2 days! Turn the bag every 12ish hours or so to evenly distribute the seasonings and extruded juices. This also gave me time to ponder on how to smoke it. I don't own a smoker. I could have rigged one up with my gas grill or some other Alton Brown-esque method, but ultimately decided to go with a borrowed Cameron Smoker and some applewood chips. (I debated between applewood & hickory, but applewood came out on top.) If you're not familiar with Cameron Smokers, they're great home-kitchen devices! You can smoke ANYTHING in them -- fish, red peppers, meat, cheese... you name it! You can kinda tell from the picture below, it's a metal box with a drip pan in the bottom, and a rack on top. You place your wood chips beneath the drip pan, close up the box, and light it up!

And in my excitement to start smoking it, I forgot to take a picture of it on Sunday evening when it was done curing. It gave off about a quarter cup of liquid, which it's supposed to do (salt extracts liquid, remember?). So I rinsed it off and patted it dry, and let it sit on the counter for about 30 minutes.

I knew from my research, the internal temp of the belly needed to reach 150 degrees. So with the probe thermometer inserted, and it's control set to 150, I set up the smoker, closed the lid, and turned on the gas burner on my stove to a medium-low temp.
Thirty-five minutes later, it was beeping and ready! I was sort of surprised it was done that fast, but the thermometer doesn't lie! So it went onto a cutting board to cool down. About 20 anxious minutes later (it really didn't need all that time to cool down, but I just wanted to be sure), I was slicing it for BACON! I JUST MADE BACON!Into the frying pan over medium-low heat -- you can't rush greatness! And a few minutes later, I was getting my first tastes of pig-fantastic! I MADE BACON! IT ACTUALLY WORKED!!!Overall, I am ecstatic! Very pleased with the flavor, though I don't know that I am 100% sold on the flavors of the cure. I took some to my peanut gallery foodie friends this afternoon, and everyone loved it, and thought the cure was fine, not too sweet with balanced flavors. (Thanks, ya'll!) Might try a brown sugar and cayenne next time. Because there WILL BE a next time! And a time after that! In regards to the actual smoking, I used about 3 tablespoons of the applewood chips; I think 2 T. would have been enough for this size piece. Also, future batches should probably be smoked outside on the back porch, using a portable butane stove...a day later, my kitchen still has a lingering smoke scent.

Anyone reading this ever try this? Any suggestions for a great cure? I am open to them! Very excited about it, and it really was pretty darn easy! I WILL be doing this again! Soon! All hail the very tasty pig!

Frank

How bad can anything be that's called "pork it"??!! At Frank, the new upscale hot dog & sausage eatery in the middle of the warehouse district, you can get any of their dogs in the "pork it" style -- split open, stuffed with cheese, wrapped in bacon, and briefly fried. Oh yeah, bring it!

Not to mention, they have bacon infused vodka & whiskey.

So last Friday night, I went with 3 friends for a bacon-inspired meal. One's eyes get very large looking at the menu. You actually think: Oh, I could eat two dogs. Wrong! Not when there are perfectly crispy waffle fries to devour! We started with some cocktails -- an Old Fashioned, a Triple Crown, and an order of fries with 3 dipping sauces -- the horseradish, the buffalo bleu, and the punchy, a slighly spicy vinegary sauce. The non-greasy fries were consumed pretty quickly.

Then the dogs came. I just got a good old standard Vienna, porked, of course, with a side of the grilled corn. Companions had a polish w/ adobo slaw (I think) from the specials menu, a Chicago dog (with the trademark bright green relish), and a portobello cheesesteak. And an order of green chili chorizo cheese fries, also from the specials. The dogs & cheesesteak were devoured in about 3 minutes. We proceeded to pick at the chili fries, which were delicious and gooey, but we were stuffed. The corn cup I had was really tasty too -- fresh grilled corn with cilantro & a bit of chile & lime. Practically healthy! (Hey Mom, it's a vegetable!) Anyway, the thought that some had of eating two dogs was quickly wiped out.

Frank occupies the spot on Colorado that most recently has been Starlite and Crimson. They've renovated the interior a bit, to give it a sort of old-fashioned watering hole feel. Not sure how I'd describe it. When we got there at 6 pm (on a Friday), there were only a couple of tables taken, but a bunch of folks at the bar up front. When we left, it was pretty packed. Maybe a sit-down hot dog place really can make it in this economy. Sure hope so, because anything porked is alright by me.

All things pork

The one and only Bacon Explosion. Weighing it at 4 pounds, it's pure pork pleasure with sausage rolled up inside! Not made by me, but it was well-received at my recent pork-inspired pot luck. Mmmmmm.