bacon

Recipes by their Ingredients

bacon

Baked Stuffed Clams

Baked Stuffed Clams
(Serves 12)

25 oz chopped clams (reserve the juice) or 10lbs Quohogs, scrubbed and boiled until they open
½ lb bacon
½ tblsp parsley
½ large yellow onion, finely chopped
1 cup Italian breadcrumbs
1½ tblsp oregano
1 love garlic, minced
5 - 8 oz mozzarella cheese, shredded
½ tblsp Parmesan cheese, grated
½ cup celery, chopped
½ cup white wine
4 oz clam juice

NOTES: I bought clam shaped baking vessels, but you can bake this spread out on a cookie sheet or in low filled muffin tins, or individual ramekins! If your mix is too dry, add some more clam juice, if it's too wet add some more breadcrumbs. This is my Mom's recipe!

Cook the bacon and set aside, drain on paper towels. Add to the bacon grease, the onions, celery and garlic, cook until the onions become soft on low heat. Remove from pan and set aside.

Grind the clams in a food processor. Mix them into the reserved onion mixture, mixing well.

Add into the mix, the parsley, oregano, breadcrumbs, 2 oz of clam juice and the white wine, mix well.

Now add in the mozzarella and Parmesan cheese, mixing well. You want the mix to be a little on the wet side rather then the dry side. Chop the bacon and mix it into the mix.

If you are satisfied with the consistency, slightly more wet then dry, then you can start to fill up empty clam shells, or muffin tins or a sheet pan.

Pack a palm sized amount into each shell, ramekin or muffin compartment, or spread entire mix out onto a cookie sheet, ½ - ¾ high. (No higher then 1 inch)

Pre-heat oven for 10 minutes at 350 °F, put clams mid-oven for about 20 minutes.

Serve while hot! Enjoy!
Chicken Liver Pate

Chicken Liver Pate
(Makes 2 loaves)

2.2 lbs chicken liver
1.3 lbs lean ground pork
½ gallon milk
⅓ cup of sugar
3 tsp, fine ground black pepper
⅓ cup Better Than Bouillon Chicken, mixed with a tblsp warm water
7 tblsp butter
10½ oz butter (300 grams)
2 yellow onions
6 medium shallots
15 garlic cloves, peeled
⅔ lb white bread (300 grams)
6 eggs
6 pieces of thinly cut bacon

NOTES:Freezes for up to 6 months, Refrigerator for 1 - 2 weeks. This is great as the pate in a banh mi sandwich or just on crackers!

Wash the chicken livers in cold water. Cover the chicken livers in milk (to leach out the liver toxins) for 15 minutes.

Meanwhile chop the 2 onions into medium sized slivers by cutting the skinned onion in half lengthwise and then cutting it into 8 slices then cut those slice in half in one cut, then repeat on the other onion haf and then the other onion repeat, then set onion shards aside. And cut up the 6 shallots into halves then add to a processor and finely mince them and set aside. Now add all the garlic and process it until it's finely minced and set aside.

Add just enough milk to the bread to soak them for 5 minutes.

Now that the chicken liver has soaked in the milk for 15 minutes, drain the milk away and rinse the livers two more times in cold water again and then drain away the water. Now remove the sinew and fat from the livers, saving the livers aside.

Add 3⅔ tblsp butter to a hot wok or large frying pan on medium heat, add half the minced garlic and half the minced shallots and stir fry for 1-2 minutes. Now add the chicken livers and stir fry until they are medium well done (a small amount of pink left). Strain away the liquid and set the chicken livers aside. In the same pan devoid of liquid, add another 3⅔ tblsp butter over medium heat and add to it the other half of the minced shallots and garlic, stir fry for 1-2 minutes and add the ground pork and mix into the garlic and shallots, then add the onions and stir fry them all with pork, ginger and garlic until medium well (some pink in the pork).

In a large steel bowl or pot, combine the chicken liver mixture with the ground pork and onion mixture and add the ⅓ cup of sugar and the ⅓ cup of chicken bouillon, 3 tsp fresh cracked black pepper and the bread (drain the milk but don't squeeze out the bread), now add in the 10½ oz of butter and then the 6 eggs and then mix well.

In a blender we're going to grind this all, in batches, until it is of a smooth consistency. A nice milkshake! Not!

Prepare a few loaf pans with 3 slices of bacon across the length of the bottom of each loaf pan, using a ladle or pouring carefully fill the rest of the loaf pan up with the pate mixture, leaving about a half inch of room from the top. Cover tightly with foil. Put into a steamer for 2 hours. Remove and discard the bacon and then refrigerate the pate loaf for another hour, before serving.
Making Bacon

Makin' Bacon

Mmmm bacon... drool-drool-drool
There's a reason the smell of bacon can awaken a sleeping stomach from 200 yards, the cured pork sliced thin and fried or baked crisp is the Pièce de résistance of many a meal. From Breakfast, bacon and eggs, to lunch, a B.L.T. and soup, to dinner, a bacon wrapped filet mignon!

Pork belly being divided into thirds

If you find the taste and smell of bacon intoxicating and delicious, and have the drive to git to makin bacon, then you will never buy mass-produced store bacon again! The beginners finished product is so superior to the store bacon, it's like comparing the tortoise to the hare: NO CONTEST.

I started with 13.5 lb slab of pork belly with rib meat attached. (When I do this again, I will probably trim the rib meat) I divided it into three sections, each section weighed in at 4+ lbs.

Honey and Molasas Bacon before being sealed

After coating it in special curing salt and spices, (I made 3 different cures), see the image above where I add the marinade to the top of the meat and work it around the meat the best I can before it was packed and sealed and left in my fridge for about 9 days. I turned the packages over twice a day to ensure they cured evenly.

All 3 flavors, seal-a-mealed up

I decided on a 'honey and molassas', a 'pepper and garlic' and a 'pepper, bay and thyme' trifecta! I also used seal-a-meal bags (god I love that machine!).

Pepper and garlic slab being dusted

After removing and rinsing the bacon of its curing salts and drying it off, I really wanted an authentic "slab-o-bacon" so I decided to rig my oven into a smoker! Granted I did not get as much smoke to penetrate the flavor of the meat, but apparently I got just enough to hint at smoke and it had a great flavor!

Slabs about to be smoked

Luckily my oven had a removable shelf floor between the oven and the broiler below. I removed that panel and put the canister of wood shavings on top of the broiler element, on the mid shelf I had a steel bowl of ice water to keep the bacon from reaching the max smoking temperature for as long as possible and that happened to be 3 hours. I read it should be closer to 10 hours, but hey, you make the best with what you have. On the top rack is the three slabs of bacon with my digital thermometer in one.

The finished product! I gifted some out, and regret it! Mine mine all mine! mwa ha ha... err nevermind.

Molassass bacon slab after smoking

A slice of the smoked bacon
Smokey Black bean and Bacon Soup

Smokey Black Bean and Bacon Soup
(Serves 4)

5 cups chicken broth (stock)
2 cups black beans
15 strips of bacon
½ tblsp bacon fat (liquid)
½ tsp chipotle pepper (a smoked jalapeno)
¼ tsp liquid hickory smoke

NOTES: O.k., o.k. you do not have to add the bacon fat. (But it tastes so good in here!) You can also puree ¾ of the batch and leave some whole beans in there.

INSTRUCTIONS

Boil beans in the stock until tender. Add fat, chipotle and liquid smoke.
Puree with a blender, taste!

Adjust seasoning with a little salt if needed. Crumble the bacon into the soup and stir well. (Do not puree any further.) Bon Appetite!

Recipes by their Ingredients

bacon

Baked Stuffed Clams

Chicken Liver Pate

Making Bacon

Smokey Black bean and Bacon Soup

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