Sunday, June 24, 2007

Sweet-n-Spicy Roasted Bacon & More.

I made brunch, well more like Brupper (brunch, supper) today for Lauren, Asher, and Thomas. We enjoyed 2 bottles of champagne while they all patiently waited for me to finish up all components of this extremely satisfying meal.

Todays Brupper included:

- My famous sweet-n-spicy bacon
- Scones rolled in powdered sugar and baked
- Slow roasted baby red, and yukon gold potatoes with red/green peppers, shallots, and red onion.
- Fresh Fruit Salad
- King Crab and Avocado Benedict on a Savory Waffle

I am going to post recipes for the bacon, and potaotes first. I will post a recipe for the Waffle King Crab Benedict following this.

This bacon is almost like a bacon candy. The texture is not that of normal fried bacon. I roast it in the oven at a high heat for quite some time, while it sits in a bath of brown sugar and cayene. The end result is sticky, spicy, crunchy and quite possibly the best bacon ever.

The potatoes can't be beat. I often struggle when I go out to restaurants because I find that were I making what they were serving, I could do a much better job (I think I may have mentioned this in a previous post so I'll try not to rant here). There are exceptions however, like Thai food, and Sushi, I cannot make those as good here at home. Back to the potatoes, like I said they can't be beat. They are rich, brown, crispy, sweet (like the red pepper, don't worry no sugar here, only on the bacon), salty, and buttery. They kind of melt in your mouth, granted, I par boil them, and then allow them to pan roast for 1-2 hours slowly in a vat of butter. What potato wouldn't be good when prepared like that? They don't come out too rich or buttery, or oily or fatty. They're just perfect, just melt in your mouth perfect.

Alright enough of my raving. Here are the recipes:

Recipe: Sweet-N-Spicy Bacon

Ingredients:

- 12 slices thick cut bacon (we buy it at the deli, not packaged)
- 12 TBL brown sugar
- 2 tsp. Cayene (I eyeball the amount, so you should probably experiment with the ratio of sugar/cayene)
- Pepper to taste (I generally buy pepper bacon)

Directions:

1. Line a sided baking sheet with tin foil.
2. Lay each slice of bacon out on the sheet
3. Sprinkle 1/2 TBL over each slice and rub onto bacon
4. Flip and repeat step 3
5. Bake in a 425 degree oven for 15 minutes, then flip the bacon over
6. Bake for another 10-15 mintues depending on your crisp preference (we like it more on the crispy side)

Recipe: Slow Roasted Potatoes

Ingredients:

- One Red Pepper thinly sliced
- One Green Pepper thinly sliced
- One red onion thinly sliced
- 1/2 large shallot thinly sliced
- 3 red potatoes
- 3 yukon gold potatoes
- 1 TBL olive oil
- 6 TBL butter
- salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

1. Par boil the potatoes in a large pot of boiling water
2. Quarter the potatoes (when cooled a bit, of course)
3. Put 3 TBL butter and olive oil in a grill pan (or other large frying pan with sides) and heat until butter is melted. Keep heat on a medium/low setting.
4. Add potatoes to the pan, then peppers, onion and shallot.
5. Cook on the medium/low heat (adjusting as needed) for 1 hour or more.
6. Add additional butter as needed to keep the peppers and onions properly caramelizing.
7. Eat.

Soooo good. You can't find better potatoes at a restaurant. Seriously. I've tried.

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