eG Foodblog: Jackal10 III - Smoking Bacon and a May Week picnic

[jackal10]

Start building the sourdough sponge for the bread for the sandwiches. A cup of flour, a cup of water and a tablespoon of starter mother. Incubate at 85F.

I'm using white flour, although the bread will be wholemeal, since I maintain a white mother, and any excess starter will go back in to the jar, and into the fridge.

Smoker is at 83F, smoking nicely. This is slow food...

Wondering what else to smoke. I have some stilton ready, maybe nuts (not that we eat many), maybe prawns.

I've heard mashed potato smokes well, as do hard boiled eggs...Ideas? Requests?

Edited June 9, 2005 by jackal10 (log)

[petite tête de chou]

Perhaps you could stuff fresh or dried figs with Stilton and hazelnuts, walnuts or almonds? Maybe wrap them in prosciutto? Seems like they would keep and travel well in addition to being easy to eat.

edited to add...but of course my suggestion doesn't answer your request for other items to smoke. Whoops.

Edited June 9, 2005 by petite tête de chou (log)

[jhlurie]

I'm impressed.

I'm more impressed you can grow things so well in soil that color! Unless the photos aren't representing it well.

Do you use a single patch for your garden every year, or do you move it around a bit? (the outside parts I mean, not the greenhouses)

[slbunge]

Smoked, hard-cooked eggs sound quite tasty.

[evilhomer]

I've heard mashed potato smokes well, as do hard boiled eggs...Ideas? Requests?

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dates (though i'm sure other dried fruits hold potential) a smoked date is a fantastic thing, the texture becomes denser and chewier. the smoke meets the deep sticky sweetness. it's a fantastic combo. go for big ones with some moisture left in them.

[jackal10]

I'm impressed.

I'm more impressed you can grow things so well in soil that color! Unless the photos aren't representing it well.

Do you use a single patch for your garden every year, or do you move it around a bit?

←

Its a heavy alkaline clay. We manure it well, but the main problem is that its either very wet soggy and jelly like, too wet to cultivate or even walk on, or dry baked hard and cracked. There are only about two weeks in the year when its reasonable to dig..

The vegetable plots stay where they are, but what is grown in each varies. I try to run a four year roatation: Potatoes; leeks then beans, peas, etc; brassicas, roots.

Pigeons are a great menace, and devastate the crops if they can. This one is different. It arrived about a week ago and is very friendly to people, hanging around the kitchen door for food. Its got rings on its legs but its not let us come close enough to read the mimbers, and we wonder if its a racing pigeon that has got lost,

Smoking fine, at 87F. I think I'll leave the salmon another hour or so, then its had 24 hours. The bacon has another day.

Picture of condensate dripping off the iron door.

[jackal10]

Starter is looking good.

Calculations for the loaf. Want a big loaf, say 2Kg flour

1.5Kg wholemeal

250g Spelt

250g Rye (for flavour)

600g starter (30%; about half flour, half water: 300g flour)

So total flour content is 2300g

Want about 72% hydration hence 72*2300/100 or about 1700cl water

2% salt or 46g. Pinch Vitamic C

Total dough weight about 4Kg, about 3Kg baked

Edited June 9, 2005 by jackal10 (log)

[jackal10]

Note there is no need to knead; time and water develop the gluten.

In half an hour I'll add the salt; but even this pause is a refinement, then fold it every hour for the next four hours or so.

[Eden]

I like the idea of Elizabeathan dishes for the Madrigal picnic.

<snip>

Seem to feature lots of meat pies and tarts. However don't want everything with pastry. Meatballs? Capon legs?

coming in a bit late, but here's an area I've done a little research on...

While elizabethan savory dishes are not so much in the finger food department, this is the era when England's love of Sugar exploded, and any feast worth talking about finished up with a "banquet" a course of yummy sweets of diverse types. you could serve whatever you wanted for the main portion of the meal & then have a side table with an artistic array of elizabethan sweets for dessert.

For example:

Pear Tarts

Meringues

Carrot Pudding (sweet & rich)

Pippin Pudding (pippin apples baked with cream & a spiced stuffing)

Peach & Grape Tarts

French Bisket (like 'nilla wafers with plum jam)

White Leach (we call it Milk Jello but it's really good)

Knots or Jumballs (fancifully shaped cookies w/rosewater & mace)

Shell Bread (Madeleines)

Another Very Good Cake (sack flavored spice cake)

French Spinach Pie (sweet and really good just don't tell them it's spinach...)

shrewsbury cakes (rosewater flavored shortbread)

There are also various savory dishes that could be adapted to finger food servings (not just pies, and beleive me some of those pies are quite tasty) Some possibilities:

Elizabethans were particularly fond of their Roast Beef (make little rolls of thin slices & serve with mustard)

Buttered Shrimp

Pear Puddings (meatball's shaped like pears)

chicken & cauliflower in lemon sauce served on toast points.

Stewed herbed mushrooms on toastpoints

I have recipes for all of the above PM me if you want any of them...

edited because I forgot my favorite sweet.

Edited June 9, 2005 by Eden (log)

[jackal10]

Many thanks.

I'm not sure how practical some of those would be in a punt on the river...no side table, or cutlery or plates for example.

[Priscilla]

Wow this is wonderful, and inspiring, Jack, as per usual! Wonder if elderflower would grow in intemperate Southern California?

And yes to showing roses, please!

[jackal10]

OK. The salmon is declared smoked. It now needs to rest for a day or two in a ziplock baggie in the fridge to for the smoke flavour to permeate through. The bit I tried (I thought the end needed trimming) was very good indeed, promising well...

The bacon needs another day in the smoke, but I couldn't resist cutting a slice or two to try with my supper...

Meantime the next load goes into the kiln; the bacon back again, Stilton, eggs and prawns...

Next I gave the bread its first turn, folding it like making flaky pastry. See how nice the dough is, despite not being kneaded.

Now a problem. More feedback please folks. BTW I see lots of reader, but few posters...

I'm about to have all this good and very flavoursome bacon. What should I do with it? I could freeze most of it in chunks, but that seems to defeat the purpose a bit. Bacon and egg, of course, Quiche Lorraine, but what else? Bacon and beans, or heavy stews seem more like winter dishes than summer ones. What else can I make (not Bacon Ice cream or the like, please). All you Bacon lovers out theres, what is your favourite summer Bacon dish?

Edited June 9, 2005 by jackal10 (log)

[mrbigjas]

salade lyonnaise

edited to say: oh, and potato salad. with bacon. with all them potatoes you got there? perfect.

Edited June 9, 2005 by mrbigjas (log)

[Priscilla]

A couple of warm-weather bacon staples in my house:

BLT sandwich, even better with ripe avocado added. On your sourdough, toasted first -- that would be very good.

Another one is Cobb salad, a chopped salad composed of cooked bacon, cold chicken, a blue cheese, tomato, h.b. egg, a crisp lettuce, all reduced to similar-sized pieces and arranged in segments in the salad bowl for viewing before being tossed with vinaigrette.

I wonder if the smoked Stilton and the smoked h.b. eggs, together with the bacon, would be too much smokiness, or, alternatively, just enough? Hmmm.

[Genny]

Now a problem. More feedback please folks. BTW I see lots of reader, but few posters...

I'm about to have all this good and very flavoursome bacon. What should I do with it? ...All you Bacon lovers out theres, what is your favourite summer Bacon dish?

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Fresh pea soup (bisque?) with the fresh smoked bacon cooked to your liking to garnish?

[jhlurie]

Now a problem. More feedback please folks. BTW I see lots of reader, but few posters...

I'm about to have all this good and very flavoursome bacon. What should I do with it? I could freeze most of it in chunks, but that seems to defeat the purpose a bit.  Bacon and egg, of course, Quiche Lorraine, but what else? Bacon and beans, or heavy stews seem more like winter dishes than summer ones.  What else can I make (not Bacon Ice cream or the like, please). All you Bacon lovers out theres, what is your favourite summer Bacon dish?

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Hey, 3300+ views in just over 2 days is nothing to sneeze at.

If you have access to a good vacuum sealer, rather than freeze the bacon I'd say vac-pac it up.

Bacon summer dishes? Well how about crumbling some up and making a homemade bacon-based salad dressing of some kind? It could also be used as a garnish in other salady things, as well as in a lot of noodle dishes. Oh, also... a pizza topping.

[Pan]

There's always pasta alla carbonara. I don't know how summery that is, though.

[SobaAddict70]

Maybe as part of a paella? If that'd be not that much work for you...

Soba

[ludja]

Bucatini al'Amatriciana

A summery pasta dish with sauteed bacon, onions, garlic and zucchini; finish off with a little cream. Fresh, chopped tomatoes (add in while the pasta melds with the sauce) would add a whole other dimension to the dish. I cook the bacon such that it stays a little chewy for this dish.

Crumbled bacon on top of stuffed eggs (for your picnic?)

One of my favorite appetizers is from Judy Rodgers in her "Zuni Cafe Cookbook": Warm gougere puffs filled with pickled onions, cooked bacon and fresh arugula--i.e. "rocket' for you British types...

[SobaAddict70]

There's always cassoulet. Though that's more of a winter dish than anything.

Still, I suppose a pate or a terrine might be good.

And there's always bacon and cabbage. I'm thinking you could combine the bacon with a cabbage or jicama-based slaw, kind of like a twist on the classical stewed cabbage with pancetta and onions.

I'd be happy with it, a loaf of bread and a carafe of wine. No reason to mess with simplicity.

Soba

[CharityCase]

If you're looking for something a little lighter given the summer weather maybe a whitefish and bacon pairing would do you:

A couple of eipcurious recs:

Bacon and Sage Panfried trout

Swordfish, Bacon and Cherry Tomato Kebabs

P.S. Your blog is fantastic - moreso for us apartment-dwellers who dream of the day we have a backyard oven at our disposal :)

Edited June 9, 2005 by CharityCase (log)

[evilhomer]

in the spirit of pasta carbonara - a dish to be consumed at the end of an evening full of drink and merriment - we make a good deal of late night blt spaghetti. which is just what it sounds like - hot spaghetti, crisp chunks of bacon, an egg yolk added off the heat with a little acidity (which is of course traditional to the carbonara, but also approximates the mayo) and then fresh tomato and lettuce(s). It's very satisfying and a great use for fresh lettuce. I often think that a sort of pangritata would add to the blt-ness of it all, but i've not ever gotten around to it.

[petite tête de chou]

I like rumaki. Wrap slices of bacon around cooked chicken livers that have been left to cool in a mixture of soy sauce, sherry, lemon juice and garlic and a slice of water chestnut, slide under the broiler until bacon is crispy.

Or devils-on-horseback. Wrap bacon slices around almond-stuffed prunes and broil.

Serve with a hot mango chutney. Angels-on-horseback are good too. Soak oysters in a bit of Worcestershire sauce, lemon juice and balck pepper. Yet again, wrap bacon slices around and broil.

Bacon and herb scones are also good. Add a bit of dry mustard to your flour and baking powder mixture. Very nice with a cup of coffee and fresh fruit.

[Lone Star]

One of our favorite summer salads is a broccoli bacon salad.

Fresh broccoli florets, red onion, crumbled bacon, chunks of a sharp cheddar dressed with a mayonnaise/sugar/vinegar dressing. Some like to add raisins or sunflower seeds.

Thank you for sharing your week and your lovely place with us.

[tejon]

The thought of a BLT from your garden and oven has me drooling already. Freshly baked sourdough, toasted just enough, lettuce picked from the garden, tomatoes bursting with flavor, newly smoked bacon, and a good smear of real mayonnaise....it just can't get any better than that.