There's something about pork that makes it the perfect wrapping and stuffing. Sizzling bacon often encircles the likes of scallops, beef, turkey and even French toast, while porcine goodness can occasionally be found in that classic junk food, pigs in a blanket.
Chef Albert Di Meglio of New York City restaurant Olana has taken it one tantalizing step further. In the above video, Di Meglio makes Sausage-Wrapped Pork -- a whole new world for the dedicated pig fan. He grabs a pork tenderloin, wraps it in a sausage filling and finally encases it with caul (a type of fat). He pops the whole thing in the oven and then slices and serves it.
Those who just can't wait till the end of the video to broaden their porcine horizons can click here for the recipe.
Bacon is a tasty treat, no doubt. It adds a lot of flavor to everything from your favorite breakfast to gourmet chocolates, and is a perfect match for refried beans.
Enjoying regular bacon once in a while is OK if you have a clean bill of health. I always tell people to check in with their doctor or a nutritionist. Consulting a nutritionist can be a real eye-opener, but can also help you understand exactly how much saturated fat overall you're consuming and how to make healthier changes if you need to.
Aside from bacon, lettuce and tomato, what makes the perfect BLT? Balance.
Because there are so few ingredients, each must be carefully weighed against the other: building the sandwich is not entirely dissimilar to building, well, a building. Or, if you're unlucky, a house of cards. Joy the Baker is well-aware of the perils concealed within the bready confines of a BLT, and has, if this picture is any indication, overcome the challenges to construct a real winner. Crispy bacon, thin slices of tomato, some crunchy lettuce and a smear of roasted red pepper mayonnaise on lightly toasted bread: this baby has enough balance to qualify for the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team -- or, failing that, a very tasty lunch.
Not Martha set the foodie world on fire -- uh, 378 commenters and a bunch of blogs, at least -- with her BLT-themed, freestanding bacon cups. But they required three hours of effort and resulted in a house full of smoke.
Then Merriment Design came along and introduced a microwave to the process. Voila! Cups large and small whipped up in as little as five fire-free minutes. All they required were a few pieces of kitchen paraphernalia, some paper towels and a whole lot of bacon. Click through for the particulars of how it's done, and be in bacon cups all summer long.
Love it, loathe it or live for it, meat's been on a lot of minds these days.
A recent study found that red meat consumption increases the overall risk of mortality. And even though swine flu is not transmissible through pork products (duh), it wasn't exactly a publicity boon for the other white meat, either. Even the beloved bacon has been taking a beating. One writer went so far as to declare an end to Baconmania, proclaiming that "Our Long Coronary Nightmare Is Almost Over."
Meat, needless to say, isn't going down without a fight. Aside from the expected army of industry lobbyists covering its (fat)back, it's got plenty of product tie-in love. There's these plush toys from Sweet Meats, so cute they could bring a smile to even a vegetarian's face. There's Meatcards, the beef jerky business cards that recently took the Internet by storm.
And, standing boldly in the face of the bacon backlash, there's Heather Lauer's "Bacon: A Love Story." Subtitled "A Salty Survey of Everyone's Favorite Meat," it includes profiles of bacon-loving chefs across the country, recipes for such delicacies as bacon-jalapeno pizza and bacon Bloody Marys, and tips for creating your own cure. Clearly, Lauer isn't writing bacon's obituary. And if anything can help meat get its groove back, its a 100 percent recycled fleece T-bone.
Pay no heed to those who thoughtlessly proclaim bacon-inflected desserts "so over," or "so December 2008."
Pictured is one of the reasons why. This delicacy, known as Pig Candy, is the genius of one Rhonda Kave of Roni-Sue's Chocolates. What Kave has done is create a union as holy as that of peanut butter and chocolate or vodka and tonic: fried bacon, dipped in chocolate. And that's it.
It's a marriage that is astoundingly pure yet diabolically addictive and, thanks to the beauty of online retail, has inspired slavish devotion far beyond the Roni-Sue headquarters on New York City's Lower East Side. This photo hints at the promise and madness contained in each salty-sweet nugget. While the shutterbug's ability to restrain herself long enough to take the pic is admirable, the subject likely met its demise shortly after being immortalized for the enjoyment of drooling procrastinators everywhere.
MEAT CARDS: BUSINESS CARDS MADE FROM MEAT AND LASERS.
We love a direct marketing approach. "Meat Cards" -- pure beef jerky etched with your information using lasers (sorry, "a 150 WATT CO2 LASER") -- take off where the bacon explosion, flaming bacon lance of death and meat art stop.
Why should you care? Because they'll "retain value after the econopocalypse," of course: "Hoard and barter your calorie-rich, life-sustaining cards." Bust these suckers out at the next Bar Association meeting or snack on them when stuck on the subway.
Follow the meatheads' Twitter to find out when to avail yourself of these treasures.
This bacon teacup is from Meat After Meat Joy, an exhibition of artists who work in meat (yes, there are more than one!), now running at the Daneyal Mahmood Gallery in New York. If you think bacon art is a contemporary phenomenon, you'll find it interesting to learn that artists have been using meat in the work since at least as far back as 1964, when Carolee Schneemann staged a "happening" involving chicken, sausage, raw fish and several semi-nude performers at the Festival of Free Expression in Paris. Other works at the Meat After Meat Joy exhibit include an animatronic meat shoe that twitches with electricity and a lard and meat flag that is already swarming with maggots. Mmmmm.
I love bacon. I've had a lot of it in my life, in many shapes and sizes, and cooked in many different ways. But I have never seen anything like the above -- especially from a store-bought brand. I tried to pull a piece out of the package, and it just wouldn't separate from the clump. After a few moments of struggle, I realized why -- that entire clump was the end of one piece of bacon.
The above picture doesn't completely do the bacon justice, but one end on each of the 3 pieces I pulled out was huge. The top two strips came in at about a centimeter thick, while the biggie was even bigger. In fact, the chunks were so huge that I chopped a lot of the thick parts off (which almost filled a ramekin) to make a soup with later, while still having more than enough for my meal. But best of all -- a good portion of the big chunks is all meat. Not fat.
From what I can find Googling, Bob's Bacon must be new to the world, and it comes right from Sofina Foods, a custom food manufacturer. I just hope it sticks around, because at $3 a pop, it's a heck of a lot thicker than the other thick bacon you can pick up at the grocery store, and a whole megton cheaper.
Have you ever found bacon that thick at your grocery store? And if you are a regular hugely-thick bacon consumer, do have any great recipes requiring super-thick bacon?
The breakfast sandwich market gets a little more crowded with Dunkin Donuts' newest creation: The Waffle Breakfast Sandwich. Yes. I know. Calm down. The sandwich consists of egg, cheese and bacon between two maple syrup-flavored waffles.
The composition evokes memories of Junior's Restaurant's brisket-on-latke sandwich, but the DD sandwich's taste overkill is more reminiscent of the famous Jimmy Dean sausage-in-a-pancake-on-a-stick. And, like the sausage-in-a-pancake-on-a-stick, the bacon-egg-cheese-maple-waffle sandwich possesses a dubious deliciousness.
The mix of artery-clogging morning cholesterol with the sweetness of maple syrup is almost too much to bear, yet somehow you cannot resist devouring the last sticky crumb. Devouring, wishing that the waffle was truly waffle-sized and not English muffin-sized. And hating yourself for wishing that. And swearing to go straight to the gym as soon as you are done. And craving another one.
A man has vowed to eat nothing but bacon for the month of February. No other foods. No condiments. He's even limiting his drinks to water and booze. Crazy, eh? But this is not just any man. This is Michael J. Nelson, former writer and host of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
"Bacon" shall hereafter refer to the cured and smoked fatty cuts of pork, either back, side or belly. In other words "American bacon". No "Canadian bacon", which is really just lunchmeat. No pork chops. No turkey bacon. No "tofacon" or any such horror. Just bacon.
I'd beg to differ on the "Canadian bacon" thing since it's actually peameal back bacon, which does fit his rules. But still -- this is a true sign of bacon love. Forget bacon baking, bacon martinis, and all of the other strange forms of bacon that have popped up recently. This is hard-core love.
Reason #3,493,802 why I love the internets, from the Foodzie info page for Luca Chocolate's Bacon Box:
This box started from a special request from a blogger for something with bacon and chocolate. I knew the marriage of the two flavors (sweet and salty) would be delicious! I crafted two different bacon and chocolate truffles, both of which you will find in this box.
And #3,493,803 from BonBonBar's Foodzie page:
The combination of Single Malt Scotch and Dark Chocolate is one of the more special sensations in the confectionery world. From the first taste to the seductive aftertaste, new and complex flavors emerge that seem to enhance both the Scotch and the chocolate. Our Scotch Bar rounds out the experience with chewy caramel and delicate flakes of Maldon Sea Salt. We use Talisker 1992 Distillers Edition Single Malt Scotch, from the Isle of Skye. It was transferred from traditional bourbon oak into amoroso sherry casks to finish its maturation.
And what is this magical Foodzie, this bringer of joy and seemingly hallucinatory foodstuffs? It's an online market for small artisanal food producers, and seemingly a win-win for both the vendors and customers. Because there's little overhead involved, the makers earn roughly double what they would on a traditional in-store sale, and the savings are passed on to customers -- who also have the benefit of one-stop shopping for some pretty appealing foodstuffs that might not otherwise find on their local stores' shelves.
All products are personally tested and vetted by the site's founders, three food-loving friends who met at Virginia Tech and went on to found the company in North Carolina. Their current roster includes thirty vendors of meat, cheese, coffee, tea, and many other edible goodies including plenty more of those whack-a-doodle chocolate constructs all the kids are so wacky about these days.
If you'll pardon me, I'll be off to stick my face into an Appalachian Wedge.
Earlier this week, The Kitchn delighted us by calling Slashfood "the center of all things bacon." In an effort to live up to this title, we bring you The Bacon Explosion (it works best if you imagine a wrestling announcer saying those words in a booming, echo-y fashion).
What is The Bacon Explosion, you ask? It is a creation of Jason at BBQ Addicts and it is a roll of barbecue flavored pork sausage, filled with crispy bacon bits and surrounded by a tightly woven bacon mat. This roll of porky goodness is then smoked and glazed with a sweet sauce. To serve, it gets sliced in rounds and presented (ideally) between two halves of a flaky biscuit.
To see the step-by-step process of how to make your own Bacon Explosion, click here.
Happy New Year, all! Hope everyone had a warm, festive Eve and is relatively headache-free and rested post-revelry. Now, there are as many ways to prepare the cowpea and rice concoction of Hoppin' John as there are squares on a calendar, but in many parts of the American South, the definitive date to simmer up a big ol' pot of it is New Year's Day. While the name's origin is still the subject of some debate -- some scholars asserting that it's a corruption of "pois a pigeon," a Carribean dish enjoyed by Southern slaves while still in their native land, and others claiming it's derived from a 13th century Iraqi dish called "bhat kachang" -- the dish's fans maintain that eating it ensures good luck for the coming year. This may well be superstition, but I'm inclined toward any angle that's gonna get a bowlful of it in front of me on a chilly January 1st.
My grand revelation of the day (though likely hardly news to many of you) is that cowpeas are the genus for the group that contains blackeye peas (most commonly used in Hoppin' John), catjang, and yardlong beans. They're also called crowder peas.
Some recipes for Hoppin' John contain tomatoes or okra, and the swap in of okra for the beans makes it a Limpin' Susie.
Got a favorite variation? Share it below, and peruse my favorite recipe after the jump.
Sure, many folks go to an Alice B. Toklas place when creative brownie making is mentioned, but for a goody two-shoes like me (with a cop pal as my afternoon's company to boot!), there's much swoony satisfaction in a recipe that highlights some of my favorite legal vices. I'm hardly the first to alight at bacon brownies, but I decided to borrow a step from the bourbon balls I'm often rolling up 'round this time of year for holiday party purposes. A double-soak -- once pre and once mid-toasting of a half cup of pecans in bourbon, and a swap-in of the nut-infused bourbon for the traditional vanilla brings a slightly tipsy edge to a deeply fudgy brownie. A grind of fresh black pepper (inspired by a Chanterelle Staff Meals brownie recipe, which credited the technique to Maida Heatter) strums the palate to life; a subtle note of smoked salt lets the bolder bacon sing.
Had there not been half a foot of snow atop my grill cover, I'd have seen what came of an attempt to tobacco-smoke the pecans and chocolate, but for now, these are more than sufficiently wicked.
We can change the way we make eggs -- scrambled, poached, fried -- but what about changing the eggs themselves? Mix up your scrambling routine with quail eggs.
A man has vowed to eat nothing but bacon for the month of February. No other foods. No condiments. He's even limiting his drinks to water and booze. Crazy, eh? But this is not just any man. This is 
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