Zingerman’s 4th Annual Camp Bacon is coming soon and to help get everyone prepared, we’re sharing tasty excerpts and recipes from Ari’s book, Zingerman’s Guide to Better Bacon. 

Apple (or Pear) Bacon Crisp

Strange as it sounds to some, bacon really can beget a fine dessert. As someone at the Zingeman’s Roadhouse said when we had this on our dessert list a while back, “You might think bacon and apples sounds strange for dessert, but it’s basically like serving pork chops with applesauce.” Made sense to me. And for folks who love their bacon, it’s a very good way to get a bit more into their day.

The crisp is a great autumn dessert and would be excellent for both eating and engaging guests in conversation at holiday meals. You can do it with pears instead of apples, with equally good results. In truth, I almost like it better that way, but they’re both darned good! Take your pick, or, if you’re entertaining, do one of each and let your guests decide.

Ingredients:

• ¾ cup golden raisins
• 3 tablespoons bourbon
• 6 ounces sliced Arkansas peppered or long pepper bacon (about 3 to 4 slices), diced
• ¾ cup Muscovado (or other natural dark) brown sugar
• 9 to 12 ripe apples or pears (about 2½ pounds)
• 1¼ teaspoons cinnamon
• ¼ cup unsalted butter

For the streusel:

• ½ cup unsalted butter, chilled and cut into ½-inch pieces
• 1¼ cups flour
• ¼ cup Muscovado (or other natural dark) brown sugar
• ¼ cup sugar
• ¼ teaspoon fine sea salt

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 400°F.
2. Pour the bourbon over the raisins, mix well and set aside to soak for a minimum of 15 minutes, on up to a couple of hours (longer is better to my taste, but if you forget to do it ahead the shorter time will work just fine).
3. Dredge the bacon in ¾ cup of brown sugar and lay on a foil-lined
4. baking sheet with a lip. Sprinkle any of the remaining brown sugar over the top. Bake for 20 minutes or until very dark brown, crisp and caramelized. Carefully remove from oven and allow to cool.
5. While bacon is cooking, slice the fruit (skin on) directly into a 9-inch round pan. After you’ve covered the bottom of the pan, sprinkle on some of the raisins, then a bit of the bourbon and the cinnamon. Add another layer of fruit, then the remaining raisins and cinnamon. Sprinkle the balance of the bourbon over the top and dot with the butter. (The sliced fruit may pile up over the lip of the pan, but it will settle while baking.) Sprinkle the candied bacon pieces evenly over the top.
6. Reduce the oven temperature to 375°F.
7. Make the streusel by combining the butter, flour, salt and sugars in a mixer or food processor. The mixture should be crumbly and somewhat dry. Sprinkle over the top of the apple mixture in the pan and pat down lightly. Go around the edges, pressing the streusel into the fruit to seal.
8. Place the dish in the oven uncovered and bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the juices are bubbling up around the edges and the streusel is nicely browned. Remove from the oven and cool for 15 minutes.
9. Serve warm, with optional ice cream or gelato.

Serves 6 to 8 for dessert.

See you at camp!

Zingerman’s 4th Annual Camp Bacon is coming soon and to help get everyone prepared, we’re sharing tasty excerpts and recipes from Ari’s book, Zingerman’s Guide to Better Bacon. 

Pasta alla Gricia

The background on this dish is provided in the section on guanciale (see page 118), so all I’ll say here is that it’s a really great bowl of pasta, and that the pepper is one of the key components of this dish, not a postscript, so use a lot of it. The more I eat this dish, the more I like it.
Ingredients:

• 1 pound spaghetti (I’m partial to Martelli, but you can pick from any of the great artisan brands including Latini, Rustichella and Cavalieri)
• 5 ounces (about 2 to 3 slices) guanciale, diced
• Hot red pepper flakes (preferably Marash), to taste
• Freshly ground Tellicherry black pepper to taste
• 5 ounces Italian Pecorino Romano cheese, finely grated

Procedure:

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Add a generous amount of salt.
2. At the same time, begin heating a heavy 12-inch skillet over medium-high heat.
3. Add the pasta to the water and stir so that the noodles don’t stick.
4. Fry the guanciale in the skillet until its fat is released and the nuggets begin to crisp. (If your guanciale is too lean, add a bit of olive oil to the pan.)
5. When the pasta is approaching but not quite yet al dente, remove from the heat and drain.
6. Add the pasta to the skillet with the guanciale and toss well to coat with the hot pork fat. Cook over medium heat for about 2 minutes, until the pasta is fully al dente. Stir regularly so that the pasta doesn’t stick. Add red pepper flakes and black pepper liberally to taste.
7. Turn off the heat, add the grated Pecorino cheese and toss to coat. Serve hot, and pass the pepper grinder.

Variation:
In the spring, sauté 6 ounces of asparagus, cut into 1-inch pieces, along with the guanciale. I like the asparagus pieces lightly browned to bring out their full flavor.

Serves 4 as a main course, or 6 to 8 as a side dish.

See you at camp!

Zingerman’s 4th Annual Camp Bacon is coming soon and to help get everyone prepared, we’re sharing tasty excerpts and recipes from Ari’s book, Zingerman’s Guide to Better Bacon. 

North Carolina Fish Muddle

“Bacon makes the soup”

—Provençal saying

I’m not sure how I first heard of this dish, but it has become one of my favorite ways to cook fish stew over the years. It’s clearly in the same culinary tradition as all the one-pot seafood stews made anywhere near the ocean—something between a thickened bouillabaisse with bacon and a fish-dominated, lightly tomato-based chowder.

Although I’d always seen this billed as “Outer Banks Fish Muddle” I was steered straight by Elizabeth Wiegand, author of the Outer Banks Cookbook. “Muddles are done both at the coast and up rivers, so some sources say,” she explained. “However, I’ve always considered them INNER coast.” What she’s saying makes good sense. As she pointed out quickly, while it makes a great summer getaway and provides for some fine fishing, the thin strip of land that is the Outer Banks has never been a good place for raising the pigs from which the bacon for this fish stew comes.

(As a pig-related side note, Elizabeth also shared with me that back in the nineteenth century the North Carolinian upper crust built homes on the Outer Banks, then ferried all their possessions across the bay: servants, supplies, pigs and cows all came over. The livestock liked to root under the houses, which in and of itself isn’t a terrible thing. But the small holes in the floors of the Outer Banks houses, which allowed floodwaters to drain, also allowed the smell of the animals to permeate their interiors. The latticework that became so typical of houses in this area was originally installed to keep the animals and aromas away from the living quarters.)

Most recipes for muddle rely on rockfish, so called because the fish hang out near rocks. You may know them as striped bass, which fisherman refer to as “stripers.” What I didn’t know until speaking with Elizabeth is that they’re also known along the Carolina coast as “Mr. Pajama Pants” because of the horizontal black stripes that run up their hindquarters. Better still, some folks call them “squid hounds” for their propensity to chase squid, one of their favorite foods. The spring and fall are prime striper seasons—one theory of muddle making being that people had end of the year get-togethers to cook up the new season’s fish (remember, the slaughter took place around New Year’s, as well).

There are a few thousand versions of muddle. In part because it’s so good, and in part because this book is about bacon, I’ve put the pork more out front than some other cooks might have done. With that in mind, I prefer to feature the bigger flavors of an Edwards’ or Benton’s. I use a mixture of different fish for greater complexity of flavor and texture, but it’s certainly great made exclusively with striped bass, as well.

The sliced bread isn’t in many recipes but it’s a great way to bring more bacon flavor to the dish. Elizabeth reminded me that many Southerners would use Saltines, which are, of course, widely considered a “traditional”  bread down below the Mason-Dixon line. I have eggs listed as optional—most recipes don’t use them but I think they’re delicious. I’ve old references to doing the same in various versions, including one from Beth Tartan’s 1955 classic book, North Carolina and Old Salem Cookery.

Muddle is mostly considered a main dish, but you could certainly serve it in smaller portions as a soup course.

Ingredients:

• 8 ounces (about 4 to 6 slices) bacon, diced
• 2 medium onions, diced
• 1 large leek, washed well and thinly sliced
• 1 large or 2 medium carrots, diced
• 2 stalks celery, diced
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 pounds fresh plum tomatoes, chopped (in the off-season I’d suggest using good-quality canned)
• An additional 4 ounces bacon, in a single chunk
• 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme leaf
• ¼ teaspoon hot red pepper flakes (I like the Marash red pepper flakes from Turkey)
• 2 tablespoons parsley, chopped, rinsed and squeezed dry
• 4 cups fish stock
• ½ pound pollock or other inexpensive white ocean fish, cut into 1-inch
• pieces
• 1½ pounds waxy potatoes (I like Yukon Golds), cut into ½-inch dice
• 1 pound striped bass or other full-flavored ocean fish, cut into 1-inch
• chunks
• 1 pound cod or other flaky white ocean fish, cut into 1-inch chunks
• Coarse sea salt to taste
• Freshly ground Tellicherry black pepper to taste
• 6 eggs (optional)
• 6 slices good crusty bread
• 3 to 4 tablespoons reserved hot bacon fat
• Bacon fat mayonnaise (optional, see page 172, Zingerman’s Guide to Better Bacon)

Procedure:

1. 1. Brown the diced bacon over medium heat in a soup kettle or large Dutch oven until crisp. Remove and set aside. Remove the 3 to 4 tablespoons of drippings and reserve for garnish, leaving the rest in the pot. (If you don’t have enough fat in the pan, feel free to add a glug from the jar you’ve now started saving . . . right?)
2. 2. Sauté the onion, leek, carrot and celery in the fat until soft. Stir gently to be sure they don’t stick.
3. 3. Add the garlic and bay leaf and cook for 2 more minutes.
4. 4. Add the tomatoes, bacon chunk, thyme, red pepper and parsley and cook over medium high for 10 to 15 minutes, until the tomatoes release their juices and begin to reduce.
5. 5. Add the fish stock, pollock pieces and potatoes and bring to a strong simmer. Reduce heat to medium low. Simmer, uncovered, for about 2 hours. The muddle should be the texture of a moderately thick vegetable soup, so add more water if needed.
6. 6. Remove the bacon chunk and set aside for future use. (At this point, the stew can be cooled and held in the refrigerator overnight, to be finished the following day. If you do so, be sure to bring the broth back to a strong simmer before continuing.)
7. 7. Add the striped bass and cod, submerging them in the stewing juices, and bring back to a low boil.
8. 8. Simmer for 5 to 8 minutes, until fish is just done. Add salt and pepper to taste. The stew should be thick and savory.
9. 9. If using the eggs either poach them in a separate pot or do as I do and just crack them gently into the muddle when it starts to simmer, after you’ve added the final pieces of fish.
10. 10. When the stew is just about ready, toast the bread. Rub each slice with some of the reserved bacon fat.
11. 11. Warm the bowls in the oven. Ladle in the muddle and top with a slice of the toast. Place one of the poached eggs in each bowl. Sprinkle with the diced bacon.
12. 12. You can also treat the muddle like a Marseillaise bouillabaisse by spooning a dollop of bacon fat mayonnaise atop the toast as a rouille. (It’s delicious!)

Serves 4 to 6 as a main course, or 8 as a side dish.

See you at camp!

Zingerman’s 4th Annual Camp Bacon is coming soon and to help get everyone prepared, we’re sharing tasty excerpts and recipes from Ari’s book, Zingerman’s Guide to Better Bacon. 

South Carolina Red Rice

This recipe is classic cookery from the South Carolina (and actually Georgia as well) coast. A staple dish of the Lowcountry—one of North America’s most interesting and important regional cuisines— you can probably find six hundred different recipes for red rice in Southern cookbooks. The dish uses meat—here it’s bacon, of course—as an accent, so that you’re eating the same sort of rice and vegetable-dominated diet that one might get in the Mediterranean (but, again, using bacon fat in place of olive oil). Glenn Roberts from Anson Mills says he gives credit for this dish to émigré Sephardic Jews, although they probably weren’t doing it with bacon as nearly everyone does today. In her book about Southern Jewish cookery, Matzo Ball Gumbo, Marcie Ferris shares a recipe that uses Kosher salami instead!

If you make Red Rice with Uncle Ben’s, out-of-season tomatoes and supermarket bacon the dish is going to be fairly unremarkable. For me, the Anson Mills Carolina Gold Rice is key to making the dish as exceptional as it can be. It’s a South Carolina low-yield, high-flavor rice varietal that dates back to the nineteenth century, so it’s the right rice to use for both authenticity and excellence of eating. Organically grown, field-ripened, custom-milled to retain all of the germ and most of the bran, it’s exceptionally flavorful stuff. You can certainly work with other varieties (most people do), but remember that, a) the flavor and texture of Carolina Gold is really something special, and b) you’ll need to adjust your cooking times and liquid-to-rice ratio a bit.

As to which pork to use, I like the Arkansas Peppered Bacon, but Sam Edwards’  dry-cured would be excellent, too. As in all Lowcountry cooking, the rice should really be in distinctive, individual grains when you’re done, rather than the creamily bound-together form you’d get from Italian risotto.

Ingredients:

• 2 cups Anson Mills Carolina Gold rice
• 4 medium tomatoes or 1 (14.5-ounce) can
• whole peeled tomatoes with their juice
• 8 ounces sliced Arkansas peppered bacon
• (about 4 to 6 slices)
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 2 cups chicken broth (preferably homemade or one of the better commercial brands: you may not end up using it all, but any leftover broth can be cooled and used later in the week)
• Coarse sea salt to taste
• Freshly ground Tellicherry black pepper to taste

Procedure:

1. 1. Wash the rice in cold water three times, or until the water runs clear. This keeps the grains from sticking together.
2. 2. Halve the tomatoes and squeeze the juice into a medium bowl. If you’re using canned tomatoes, use the juice from the can. You’ll want about 2 cups of liquid for cooking the rice, so top off the tomato juice with chicken broth if necessary.
3. 3. Chop the tomatoes and set aside. You should have about 1 cup.
4. 4. Fry the bacon in a heavy-bottomed stockpot over moderate heat until almost crisp. Remove from the pot and drain. (You’ll want about ¼ cup bacon grease, so add a bit from your stash if needed.)
5. 5. Reduce heat slightly and add the chopped onion. Sauté, stirring occasionally, until nicely caramelized—about 20 minutes.
6. 6. When the onions are just about ready, bring the broth and tomato juice to a boil in a medium-sized pan and reduce to a low simmer. If you’re working with unsalted broth, add 1 teaspoon coarse salt.
7. 7. When the onions are caramelized, raise the heat in the pot a bit, add the rice and stir well. Sauté for a couple of minutes, stirring constantly, until the rice is very hot and shiny.
8. 8. Stir the chopped tomatoes into the rice and cook for several minutes, stirring constantly.
9. 9. Add the simmering broth into the rice, stirring well. Bring to a boil, cover the pan, reduce heat to low and cook for 10 minutes. Turn off the heat. (And don’t pick up that lid to look, either, OK?) Let stand, covered, for another 10 minutes.
10. 10. While the rice is cooking, chop the bacon.
11. 11. Remove the lid from the rice pot, add the bacon and stir gently. Flavor with salt and a generous dose of freshly ground black pepper, fluff with a fork and serve.

Serves 4 to 6 as a main dish.

See you at Camp!

Zingerman’s 4th Annual Camp Bacon is coming soon and to help get everyone prepared, we’re sharing tasty excerpts and recipes from Ari’s book, Zingerman’s Guide to Better Bacon. 

Irish Bacon and Cabbage

As you’ve already learned, in Ireland it’s far more typical to cook bacon with cabbage than corned beef. I’d serve the dish with a little mustard and parsley sauce and maybe some hot mashed potatoes.

Ingredients:

• For the bacon and cabbage:
• 2 pounds Irish bacon (brined pork loin, not smoked), in a single chunk
• 1 carrot, roughly chopped
• 2 stalks celery, thickly sliced
• 2 leeks, washed well and sliced
• 1 medium onion, roughly chopped
• 2 teaspoons fresh thyme
• 1 tablespoon whole Tellicherry black peppercorns
• 1 large head green cabbage, core removed, cut into 6 pieces
• Coarse sea salt to taste
• Freshly ground Tellicherry black pepper to taste

For mustard and parsley sauces:

• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 2 tablespoons flour
• ¾ cup bacon stock (reserved from cooking the bacon)
• ¾ cup whole milk
• 1 tablespoon brown mustard
• ¼ cup parsley, finely chopped, rinsed and squeezed dry
• Coarse sea salt to taste
• Freshly ground Tellicherry black pepper to taste

Procedure:

1. 1. Place bacon in a large stockpot and fill with cold water to cover. Bring to a rapid boil, then immediately drain and rinse. Return the bacon to the pot with fresh cold water to cover again. Place on high heat, adding the carrot, celery, leeks, onion, thyme and peppercorns. Add more water if needed to just cover the bacon and vegetables. Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cover pan loosely, allowing steam to escape, and cook for 1½ to 2 hours. The bacon should be fork tender.
2. 2. Remove the bacon from the pot and set aside. Strain the stock and set it aside. Discard the cooked vegetables and return the stock to the pot, reserving the ¾ cup for making the mustard and parsley sauces. Return the bacon to the pot. Add the cabbage, placing the pieces around the sides. Cook over medium-high heat for 20 minutes, until cabbage is tender. Add salt and pepper to taste.

While the cabbage is cooking, prepare the mustard and parsley sauces:

1. 1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan over medium-high heat. Sift flour directly into the butter, whisking constantly until the sauce thickens and a roux forms, 2 to 3 minutes. Slowly add the reserved stock, a bit at a time, whisking with each addition until thickened. Add milk a little at a time, stirring steadily, until incorporated. Split the resulting béchamel evenly into two serving bowls. Whisk the parsley into one bowl and the mustard into the other. Add salt and pepper to taste.
2. 2. When the cabbage is tender and the sauces are ready to serve, remove the bacon from the pot. Cut into medium-thick slices. Ladle the cabbage into warm serving bowls along with the sliced bacon.

Serves 4 as a main course

see you at camp!

Zingerman’s 4th Annual Camp Bacon is coming soon and to help get everyone prepared, we’re sharing tasty excerpts and recipes from Ari’s book, Zingerman’s Guide to Better Bacon. 

Emma Dencklau’s Iowa German Potato Salad

This recipe first came up courtesy of historian and long-time Zingerman’s customer Leo Landis, whom I met many years ago when he was working at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. Leo moved back to his native Iowa a few years ago, but we’ve continued to correspond: I asked for his help in preparing a special “Foods of Iowa” dinner at the Zingerman’s Roadhouse, and in return he shared many lovely little bits of Iowa history and culture, one of which was this great bacon-powered potato salad.

The Dencklau recipe dates to the early part of the twentieth century and probably goes back to older roots in Germany. Emma’s family arrived here from Germany at the turn of the last century. According to the 1920 census she was born in 1902 in Webster County, about 100 miles north of Des Moines. Today the trip is about an hour and a half by car, but back then it would have been roughly two days each way on horseback. Looking down the census page you can see how many families in the area were of German origin, so it’s not surprising that potato salads like this were and are very common. Leo got the recipe from the grandson of the woman to whom it’s credited, which means it’s basically third-generation American by this point.

The vinegar is a key ingredient, whose quality is integral to the flavor of the finished dish. As I’ve said many times, I’m very high on the cider vinegar we get from Pierre Gingras in Quebec. It’s made from hand-picked apples, no windfalls, no dregs, then aged for over two years in oak barrels. In this dish it adds that lively vinegar zip, but because Gingras’ is so well-made and its flavor so well-rounded, the flavor of the finished dish is lively without seeming overly sharp. Rather than using tap water I used the cooking water from the potatoes, both because the starch in the water helps binds the sauce and because it brings its own flavor to the salad.

Emma’s exact recipe is below. I used the Nueske’s applewood-smoked bacon, since its roots are—as were Emma’s—both German and Midwestern. I’ve kept the original, large quantities because they more accurately reflect the way dishes were cooked back in Emma’s day. All the ingredients are portioned in nice round numbers, so you can easily halve or quarter the amounts if you want.

I personally don’t love sweet salads, so I when I make this at home I add almost none of the sugar that Emma calls for. By contrast I probably put in a bit more freshly ground black pepper. Regardless, the finished salad is darned delicious—very rich, but lightened on the palate by the goodly dose of vinegar.

Ingredients:

• 4 pounds potatoes (I prefer Yukon Golds or German butterballs because they’re delicious and buttery in their own right, and also because they absorb the bacon fat so beautifully)
• 1 pound sliced Nueske’s or comparable bacon (about 8 to 12 slices)
• 1 large onion, coarsely chopped
• 2 tablespoons flour
• ½ cup cider vinegar
• 2 tablespoons sugar (optional)

Procedure:

1. 1. Steam the potatoes in their skins over salted water for 30 minutes or until well-cooked and fork tender. Remove them from the heat and allow to cool, reserving 1¼ cups of the cooking water.
2. 2. Fry the bacon over medium heat until nearly crisp but still bendable, then remove it from the pan and cut it into 1-inch pieces. Leave the fat in the pan.
3. 3. Reduce heat to low and add the onion to the pan. Cook over low heat until soft, stirring occasionally.
4. 4. Raise heat to medium. Sift the flour over the onions, then stir steadily for about 5 minutes to make a roux. The flour and fat should become well bound and very lightly brown in color.
5. 5. Slowly add the cider vinegar to the roux, stirring steadily until the sauce thickens. Repeat with the potato water, again stirring constantly until the sauce is thickened. Add the sugar if you like and, again, mix well. Remove from the heat.
6. 6. Cut the cooked potatoes into 1-inch cubes and add them to the sauce along with the bacon pieces. Mix gently, but well.
7. 7. Serve immediately, while the salad is still warm. It also keeps well in the refrigerator—you can serve it the next day and it’s still quite good, either cold or reheated.

Serves 4 to 6 as a main course, or 8 as a side dish.

see you at camp!