The CookingBites recipe challenge: bacon

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Morning Glory

Morning Glory

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Welcome to the CookingBites recipe challenge. The current challenge ingredient is bacon* and kaneohegirlinaz is our judge. To enter, all you need to do is post a recipe** which uses bacon, tag it cookingbites recipe challenge and post a link to it in this thread. The winner becomes the judge for the next challenge. You may post up to 6 entries. Deadline: midnight (close of day) Saturday 17th September UK time (GMT+1). Detailed challenge rules can be found here.

* includes vegan/vegetarian substitutes
** recipes must be posted within the time frame of the challenge but could be recipes you have made in the past, so long as they haven't already been posted on the forum as a recipe thread.
 
Holy Cow!! I’m humbled murphyscreek, Mahalo, thank you for this last Challenge’s 1st place.

AND, I’d like to say again, that cake is just amazing! The Raspberry filling put it over the top for me. I hope some of you in the Community will try this cake.

I’ve been a bit busy as of late, getting ready for another Craft & Bake Sale in our neighborhood. This go around I’m making three different baked goods, but I will pull away from the kitchen periodically to see how this next Recipe Challenge goes utilizing

BACON!!!

Any type of Bacon will do, I’m going to throw it out there cured/uncured, Pork, Duck, Turkey.

I found these in my research:
Guanciale, Chinese Cured Pork Belly, Russian Salo, Gypsy Bacon, Samgyeopsal and even Coconut Bacon!
Some of them I’d never heard of and do hope that folks will cook with their local style of Bacon.

I was reading some articles this morning about the different sorts of Bacon around the World and there seems to be many, even for those Vegetarian/Vegans out there.
I found this on JustcookButchersBox.com:

One of the more prevalent alternatives to bacon for vegans is coconut bacon. It’s made from unsweetened corn flakes, tamari, or soy sauce, liquid smoke, paprika, and maple syrup. When cooked, it results in a very similar texture, feel, and taste to bacon. Other vegan bacon alternatives are made with tempeh (a fermented soybean), shiitake mushrooms, seitan, or breadcrumbs.

I look forward to seeing what everyone comes up with.
Myself, I’d love to make a dish using Guanciale, if I could find it that is 🙃

Bacon had not been the star ingredient since 2019 and I think it's far past time its to shine again.
So let the fun begin!

BACON.jpg

I love BACON!!!
 
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kaneohegirlinaz said:
Oh for sure SatNavSaysStraightOn !!!
I'd never heard of bacon made with Eggplant, but I look forward to that.
Click to expand...
Me neither, hence why I was making the dish. I love aubergine now I'm over my childhood phobia of my ex-step father cooking/killing them! Lol
 
In my research I found so many different kinds of bacon, and no doubt, there's oodles of vegan bacon recipes out there on the WWW. I hope to see MypinchofItaly dream up some dishes using all sorts of lovely bacons from Italy, YUM!
 
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I've inspired myself :laugh:
I'm making this for dinner this evening
IMG_6553.JPG

(file photo, that I could have sworn I'd posted previously)
I make a rif on a recipe that I collected else where, dead simple!
B/S Chicken breast (or thigh), brushed with Oil & seasoned, grilled/broiled, topped with sautéed Mushrooms, Sweet Bell Peppers & Onions, followed by crumbled BACON and covered in sliced Provolone Cheese and grilled/broiled again to melt the Cheese.
YUM!
 
Since I just bought the piece of pork belly, I've got 2 recipes planned for it. A pound or so of it will be used in a nontraditional porchetta using part of a large pork loin I bought a couple of weeks ago to make tasso and porchetta. The biggest part of the pork belly will get a cure and then be braised in an Asian flavored broth to make pork belly buns and ramen bowls.
 
kaneohegirlinaz said:
Myself, I’d love to make a dish using Guanciale, if I could find it that is 🙃
Click to expand...

It's hard to find even for us living in a huge metropolitan area. Several years ago, we had been looking and looking but couldn't find any so decided to make our own. Found a place that was a co-op of several small heritage beef, chicken and pork farms in Central and Northern Florida that made a trip weekly to a huge farmer's market in Hollywood, FL, so called them and ordered the hog jowl to make sure they would bring it since they brought different products each week. We got the hog jowls and several other things, then went to leave. As we were leaving, we noticed an Italian restaurant supply place next to the farmer's market building. They had a sign up that they were open to the public on Saturdays and Sundays when the farmer's market was open. We decided what the heck, let's see what they have. Guess what they had... yes, guanciale. We had to buy a restaurant sized piece in cryovac. I think it was $70 for just over 5 pounds, but we brought it home, portioned, vacuum packed and froze. I ended up making German/Austrian style speck with the hog jowls.

We've only found guanciale in 1 other place, an Italian market up in Palm Beach in a not Mar-A-Lago neighborhood but fairly close, with commensurate pricing but they have things you have to order and pay $$$ for anyway, like really fresh northern grown mushrooms, Pacific and Northeastern oysters, truffles and guanciale.

Anyway, if you want some, PM me and we'll look around. I wouldn't mind having some again. It has a different flavor and texture than pancetta, and made the best carbonara I've ever had.
 
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