Hounds In The Kitchen » bacon

Bacon Wrapped Almond Stuffed Dates {Recipes}

Rachel — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 13:51:27 +0000

Last week I was looking for a first course for a corporate cooking class that was easy to prepare and certain to please. I decided to test making bacon wrapped dates.

Am I ever glad I did. The bites are salty and crisp on the outside, soft and sweet in the middle and contain a dense, satisfying almond in the very center. They are best served very warm.

These babies are so simple that I made enough to feed my class of twenty (forty dates worth) in fifteen minutes. After a few minutes on the grill, they disappeared from the serving plate as quickly and with as much gusto as Devie the big hound pursues squirrels in the backyard.

When you want an appetizer to wow the crowd that takes just minutes, try these dates.

Bacon-Wrapped Almond-Stuffed Dates

dried, pitted whole dates
homemade or high quality bacon, one thin 6 inch piece per date
raw or blanched almonds, 1 per date

1. Preheat oven or grill to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Insert one almond into each date. Wrap bacon around the date and secure with a toothpick.
3. Place on a cookie sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes or until bacon is browned and crisp.
4. Serve warm over arugula salad for a plated appetizer or on a hot platter for a party.

PS. Did you see the first of my birthday giveaways? Stay tuned tonight for another one and enter the Kroger Giftcard Giveaway today.

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Bacon Wrapped Almond Stuffed Dates {Recipes} is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen.
If you like what you read, please consider supporting us with a donation or visit the Hounds in the Kitchen shop for ebooks and favorite tools. Thanks!

Cider Syrup Bacon

Rachel — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 14:50:44 +0000

Italy has prosciutto, German has sausages and Spain has serrano. It seems to me that America’s go-to cured meat is bacon.

Long ubiquitous at breakfasts, bacon has recently enjoyed resurgence to cult status, flavoring everything from beer to cupcakes.

With a populace growing in concern about high fructose corn syrup and additives, making bacon has also become the de rigueur for the adventurous home cook. We hopped on the bacon makin’ wagon over two years ago and haven’t bought a pack of the store bought stuff since.

The process is simple: Rub fresh pork belly (our favorite local source is Blues Creek Meats) with a curing mix of sugar, salt, and pink salt. Under refrigeration, allow the pork to absorb the salt and leach some liquid for 4-7 days. Rinse off the salt, pat dry, and smoke or oven roast. Slice, cook, and viola! You just made the best bacon you’ve ever tasted.

The joy of home charcuterie rarely stops with the first batch of bacon, however. A curious cook wonders how this or that will affect the flavor and begins experimenting.

This drive to excite our mouths with interesting new flavors led to the discovery of cider syrup bacon. Just as one might make maple flavored bacon by adding maple syrup to the cure described above, we tried adding 1/2 cup of Charlie’s Apple Cider Syrup to a five pound batch of bacon last year. It imbibed the pork belly with tangy zest from the apples and the slightest hint of cinnamon.

When we pressed cider and made our own syrup this fall, we made another batch, knowing the ingredients even more intimately. Perfect for winter when we don’t always want to fire up the grill, cider syrup bacon is best oven roasted, lest the delicate syrup flavors be overwhelmed by smoking. This charcuterie experiment was a keeper.

If you want to jump into the world of home cured bacon and other tasty meats, we recommend Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn’s book Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking, and Curing. You can also follow the Charcutepalooza blog project in which we are participating. If you learn best in person, join us for our Charcuterie class at Franklin Park Conservatory on March 15 from 6:30 – 8 pm.

Added to Simple Lives Thursday 30th edition.

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Cider Syrup Bacon is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen.
If you like what you read, please consider supporting us with a donation or visit the Hounds in the Kitchen shop for ebooks and favorite tools. Thanks!

Luminescence

Rachel — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 17:01:24 +0000

When one prepares an ingredient from raw to plate, one learns all the secrets:
where succulent flesh gives way to stone,
the bitterest part of the leaf,
how light shines through fat.

It’s a gift, to know a thing through and through.

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Luminescence is a post from Hounds In The Kitchen.
If you like what you read, please consider supporting us with a donation or visit the Hounds in the Kitchen shop for ebooks and favorite tools. Thanks!