http://lifestyle.msn.com/foodandente...&st=k>1=9308
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"Quite a few early-morning lushes inhale the pork-belly libation as if it were a Grand Slam from Denny’s."
http://www.tetongravity.com/forums/a...1&d=1176300863
Behind the bar, where the typical bartender macerates pineapple slices in vodka or maraschino cherries in bourbon, the mixologists at the Double Down Saloon in Las Vegas keep an unmarked bottle of vodka in which float several slices of bacon. The off-the-strip dive bar serves its signature Bacon Martini ‘round the clock, and quite a few early-morning lushes inhale the pork-belly libation as if it were a Grand Slam from Denny’s.
One of the advantages of infusing swine is that it’s easy to know when it’s ready: When the booze thickens into an opaque, filmy solution, shake it with ice and pour into a traditional martini glass. Sounds easy enough, but does the Sin City hipster actually prefer the taste of Castrol motor oil to the natural bite of quality Russian water?
“Our patrons have very refined tastes, and they will be the first to tell you that progress has passed the Soviets by,” says P. Moss, Double Down’s owner. “Rotgut vodka’s chemical makeup changes with pork fat and turns into a delightfully robust beverage.”
The extremist, dare-you-to-drink-it sort of concoction is nothing new to the happy-hour crowd but still has its devotees. From the 20-something slacker’s Gorilla Fart (Bacardi 151 rum and A1 steak sauce) to the age-old frontiersman’s bourbon–raw egg yolk combo, the shock-tail has established itself as an alternative form of expression for rebel boozers everywhere, as well as a clinching timesaver for those on a serious liquid-lunch diet.
The bacon martini may not offer much good to the palate. (Same probably goes for the Gorilla Fart.) But there is potential in the carnivorous cocktail.
At the Circle Bar in New Orleans, owner Lefty Parker’s Beefytini has garnered near-cult status within his Warehouse District hangout. A dirty martini gone filthy, the $5 cocktail has Beefeater gin for its base, includes a little vermouth, and is topped with a splash of “jerky juice,” a brine mixture from inside an olive jar infused with homemade Louisiana beef jerky. For garnish, a shard of jar-soaked jerky (instead of the usual pimiento stuffing) skewers a hollowed olive.
While a less successful experiment was his Comfort Food (pieces of salami muddled inside a rocks glass, followed by a couple of jiggers of Southern Comfort), Parker swears the Beefytini has a culinary quality about it. “The juniper and the beef jerky mix really well,” he says. “The smokiness of the jerky really allows the good flavor to come out.”
http://www.chow.com/stories/10128
bacon in the news
The Perfect Bacon Sandwich Decoded: Crisp and Crunchy
LONDON, April 10 — Should it be slithery or scrunchy, glutinous or grilled? The answer, British scientists say, may be divined by a formula: N = C + {fb(cm) · fb(tc)} + fb(Ts) + fc · ta.
Researchers at Leeds University found that crisp bacon on white bread makes the perfect bacon sandwich.
That is the scientific answer to the question: what makes the perfect bacon sandwich?
And, no, it is not April 1.
Researchers at Leeds University spent more than 1,000 hours testing 700 variants on the traditional bacon sandwich, which many Britons refer to as a bacon butty (eschewing the term sandwich, said to have been coined to honor the fourth Earl of Sandwich’s habit of eating meat between slices of bread around 1762).
For Britons, butties come in a variety of guises — chip butties (French fries between slices of bread), crisp butties (ditto with potato chips) or even sugar butties, which are self-explanatory. None are viewed as especially healthful.
There are some finer points in the language, if not the cuisine. A sandwich containing sausages, for instance, is likely to be referred as a sausage sarnie, while sausages served with mashed potatoes are called bangers and mash.
There is no easy explanation for this.
Even the bacon butty, though alliterative, is sometimes etymologically challenged, as in a recent posting on the Web site of The Yorkshire Post relating to the study at Leeds University.
“Perhaps another few minutes on research would have told them that a butty is a slice of buttered bread with a topping; a bacon sarnie is what they are describing,” said a contributor who signed himself Joey Pica.
But Graham Clayton, who led the research, said the endeavor had been an earnest attempt, commissioned by the Danish Bacon and Food Council, the British subsidiary of a Danish pig producers’ organization, to determine what degree of crispiness and crunchiness made the perfect sandwich.
The company’s announcement of the research last Sunday made no reference to other criteria like cholesterol, carbohydrates or other dietary attributes of the perfect butty. Chloe Joint, a spokeswoman for Danish Bacon’s public relations company, Porter Novelli, declined to say how much the study cost.
The research combined four types of cooking, using grills, pans and ovens, three kinds of oil and four types of bacon — smoked, unsmoked, streaky and thick cut — to establish the preferences of 50 tasters in such matters as the butty’s tactile and aural crunchiness. The study also considered a broad range of condiments (like ketchup and brown sauce) and spreads.
It concluded that the best bacon butties were made with crisply grilled, not-too-fat bacon between thick slices of white bread.
Eureka!
“We often think that it’s the taste and smell of bacon that consumers find most attractive,” Dr. Clayton said in a news release. “But our research proves that texture and sound is just, if not more, important.”
In a telephone interview, he also acknowledged that tasters made comments about fat. “If there was too much fat from the cooking process, that was a turnoff for people,” he said. Leathery bacon was a no-no, too, he added.
“We are programmed to avoid leathery food as old and not very good,” he said. That wisdom does not seem to prevail, however, among some of the more basic vendors of bacon butties at roadside halts or cafes known generically as greasy spoons to denote their customary modes of cooking and hygiene.
In the experiment, some of the tasters sampled between four and six bacon sandwiches a day for three or four days.
And so the formula evolved to establish the amount of force in the bite, expressed in newtons, and the level of noise, expressed in decibels, to make the perfect crunch.
Ideally, Danish Bacon said, 0.4 newtons should be applied to crunch the sandwich, creating 0.5 decibels of noise. The formula uses these values: N = force in newtons; fb is the function of the bacon type; fc is the function of the condiment or filling effect; Ts is the serving temperature; tc is cooking time; ta is the time taken to insert the condiment or filling; cm is the cooking method and C represents the breaking strain in newtons of uncooked bacon.
“It’s not a hoax,” Dr. Clayton said, acknowledging that, a few days ago — on April 1, to be precise — it might have been taken as one.
Bump for homemade bacon-flavored vodka:
http://www.browniepointsblog.com/200...e-bacon-vodka/
admit, I can’t remember the singular event that conspired to the creation of this bacon vodka. It came to life this Christmas and found home in a tasting kit of vodkas I made for friends and family. If you have time, bacon and vodka, you too can have this tasty elixir in your hands.
What to do with it you ask? You can give it away as a gift, use it in a Bloody Mary, Make a Bastardized Cloudy Martini (a real martini doesn’t have vodka) with it and a blue cheese stuffed olive. I haven’t tried this one, but I can recognize the appeal of a Pickle Juice Sport made with bacon vodka (that’s pickle juice mixed with vodka).
It is also wonderful when mixed with date syrup for a sweet bacon cordial. It can also be poured into a spray bottle and used to spritz just a touch of smoky bacon flavor to salads, toasts or stews… wherever you want to add a touch of flavor.
Perhaps a dab behind the ears?
Bacon Vodka
makes up one pint
Fry up three strips of bacon.
Add cooked bacon to a clean pint sized mason jar. Trim the ends of the bacon if they are too tall to fit in the jar. Or you could go hog wild and just pile in a bunch of fried up bacon scraps. Optional: add crushed black peppercorns.
Fill the jar up with vodka. Cap and place in a dark cupboard for at least three weeks. That’s right- I didn’t refrigerate it.
At the end of the three week resting period, place the bacon vodka in the freezer to solidify the fats. Strain out the fats through a coffee filter to yield a clear filtered pale yellow bacon vodka.
Decant into decorative bottles and enjoy.
This is how I like my bacon............ right in the middle.
http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p...-01-08/045.jpg
BT
I just tried a bacon donair. Delicious!
bacon vodka will be ingested in T-minus 3 weeks...
i cant see the bacon bowl i posted, though i could earlier. can y'all?
Bacon wrapped hot dogs in Tijuana chased with bacon vodka would definately make a gorilla fart.
noQuote:
Originally Posted by Quinn the Eskimo
..
.
i still think the bacon cups are the way to go...not so sure how i feel about a delightfully robust beverage.
Now if you could only make the cups sealed and make bacon shotglasses with which to drink bacon vodka... one can only imagine the epicness...
Okay. This bacon talk is too delicious to have to search for. Let's petition to have a forum open to only bacon talk, recipies, and pictures of bacon treats.
Hey Powslut... when will the bacon donair be on the menu... you should post when it is scheduled for the lunch special too!!! We'll head down for that... Hmmm bacon and garlic with taziki sauce!!! Ohh Dave just suggested a side ceaser salad!!! YUMMY!!!
That would never work.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wes Mantooth
^^It was a joke. But that would be a great forum.
i like bacon
TGR would never allow such a forum.
Might as well have one focussing on farts and burps.
And make Snowsprite a moderator.
Your proposal is simply preposterous.
It will never happen.
There is a restaurant in NYC call Crif dogs that serves a
Deep fried Bacon wrapped hotdog.
It is really good.
Do I have to stress the fact that it was a joke and that it would never happen?Quote:
Originally Posted by rideit
This is actually really funny, JONG.Quote:
Originally Posted by Wes Mantooth
You will figure it out in time.
Now go eat some Bacon.
I'll make some popcorn.
Have you ever tried to pop popcorn in bacon fat?
I'm all set to make it tomorrow morningQuote:
Originally Posted by rideit
TR? Filtered mine last night, in the freezer chilling today. I stupidly forgot to take a pic of the finished product pre-filter, but did take a pic of the "used" bacon in the trashcan. Pretty gross. Results to follow...Quote:
Originally Posted by couloirman
This recipe was just sent to me by someone who knows of my love for bacon. I'm shooting to make this on Saturday for Sunday's festivities for those who are greek orthodox. A full TR would of course follow.
Bacon Baklava
ACTIVE TIME: 50 MIN
TOTAL TIME: 2 HRS plus overnight soaking
MAKES ABOUT 35 SMALL PIECES
INGREDIENTS
• 1 1/2 pounds sliced bacon
• 1 cup whole blanched almonds, toasted and coarsely chopped
• 3/4 cup coarsely chopped dates
• 1 package phyllo dough
• 10 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 cup pure maple syrup
• 1/2 cup water
• 2 tablespoons bourbon
• Finely grated zest of 1/2 orange
•
DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat the oven to 400°. In a skillet, fry the bacon in batches until crisp. Drain well and crumble. In a food processor, finely chop the bacon with the almonds and dates.
2. Butter a 9-by-13-inch metal baking pan. Lay a sheet of phyllo in the pan; trim the edges to fit and brush with butter. Repeat with 4 more phyllo sheets and butter. Spread 1 cup of the filling evenly over the phyllo. Repeat this layering of 5 phyllo sheets and bacon filling two more times. Top with 5 buttered phyllo sheets, buttering the top well.
3. With a small, sharp knife, cut the baklava into diamonds. Bake the baklava for 10 minutes. Turn the oven to 325° and bake for 1 hour longer, or until nicely browned.
4. Meanwhile, combine the sugar, maple syrup, water, bourbon and orange zest in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Simmer for 5 minutes, then let cool to room temperature. Pour the cooled syrup over the hot baklava and let stand at room temperature uncovered overnight.
Candied Bacon Ice Cream
somegeek
TR: I'm sad to say that the bacontini was gross. "Robust" maybe, but definitely not tasty, and doesn't even really taste like bacon. More musty and thick. Maybe a little liquid smoke would help? Next time I am in Vegas I will have to drop by the Double Down and see if theirs sucks too. Ah well it was worth a try, and now whenever I have visitors I can pour them a special treat from the mason jar in the freezer :D
http://tetongravity.com/forums/attac...1&d=1209223498
gu nar nar
I keep forgetting to go buy cheesecloth to drain themixture through. Its now been 7 weeks, so maybe itll be extra good. Ill drain it today, and drink some tonight. Bacon vodka + spicy V8 couldn't be that bad...
I drained mine through coffee filters. It took forever and like 6 filters to do the whole thing because the fat would seal it off.
Bacon-mary sounds gud! Especially with an extra crispy strip for a stirrer instead of celery!
vodka "baconizing" started as of 30min ago
NIIIIICE!
I have 93 different bacon offerings