Baconnaise

Sorry for the absence, but I've been busy travelling and working and generally feeling stressed and anxious over everything. I've actually cooked loads to try to relax, maybe some of these recipes will make it all the way to the blog.

Anyhow, I went to a friend's house for BBQ yesterday, first one for me this year after an abysmal summer here in the UK. I decided to make baconnaise, what could be a better condiment to grilled burgers? I've wanted to baconnaise for ages as I love anything with bacon in it. Bacon is one of the main reasons I can't be a vegetarian, that salty smokey flavour, mmmmm.

So I did a bit of research and read a couple of recipes on various sites, and this is the recipe I came up with. It includes actual bacon, not just bacon fat, as I really wanted a strong bacon flavour. It was yummy, but yes, you can kind of feel your arteries clog up while you eat it. I fried 12 rashers of bacon, and used 6 of the rashers in the baconnaise. Though if you're like me, you will have no problem finding use of the remaining 6 crispy rashers...

I used to hate making mayonnaise, that it was so difficult and took ages to get really thick. Then I learned how to make mayonnaise using a hand blender, and suddenly it took 2 min to make perfect mayonnaise, amazing! I describe the method below. If you don't have a stick blender, you can slowly add the bacon fat to your egg mix like you would for a normal mayonnaise.

Baconnaise
12 rashers of smoked streaky bacon

neutral oil

3 egg yolks

2 tsp apple cider vinegar

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 tsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp smoked paprika

0.5 tsp chili flakes

black pepper

Fry the bacon rashers in a pan until crispy, remove rashers to plate to cool

Pour the bacon fat into a bowl to cool

Finely chop 6 of the bacon rashers to a grainy powder

In a tall beaker, add egg yolks, vinegar, mustard, garlic and spices

Pour the bacon fat through a sieve into the beaker. Add more neutral oil if necessary to make up a total volume of fat/oil to 1.5 dl

Take a stick blender and push it to the bottom of the beaker. Turn the blender on, it will now create a vortex where the oil is pulled into the eggs. After 1-2 min, slowly pull the blender up. Voila, you should now have perfect mayonnaise! 

Add the bacon powder to the beaker and give it all a quick mix

Taste and add more vinegar, spice, black pepper and salt to taste

Enjoy this piece of bacon heaven as a condiment for BBQs or on sandwiches