(Rewinding a bit: the brother-in-law found this awesome blog and as I was perusing it, I found this recipe. A monthlong quest for the unsliced bacon (either belly or jowl) that the recipe called for ensued.)
It's not that I wasn't happy with what we ended up with. As promised, the stuff melted in your mouth but the flavors, if they were there were way too subtle for me to notice. It tasted great, but where was the cider? Where was the bourbon? Where was the intense bacon flavor? It was then that I realized my mistake: instead of regular, delicious, amazing looking pork belly:
I should have found some that was already cured. As in actual, unsliced bacon. Everyone keeps telling me that Bud's Meat Locker in Riverside is the place to go and next time, that's going to be my first stop. But let's consider how promising this recipe looked after it was done cooking:
Doesn't that look amazing? Doesn't that look like a glorious melding of cider, bourbon and bacon? I think it does! I don't get where things went awry. Where did all the damn flavor go? This is what we ended up with:
(If you were curious... on the left we have latkes, because it's Hanukkah and quince and on the right, we find our bacon, post braising, after it was seared.) The original recipe called for it to be served on beet chips with pureed parsnips and arugula but after consultation with Mother Cigar, we decided on going with a simple crostini with a white bean paste instead. It worked great! But overall, this recipe was a little confounding. Texture wise, it delivered what it advertised, melt in the mouth goodness. But flavor-wise, the 'intense bacon flavor' that the recipe described was somewhat lacking and I'm not entirely sure why.
This one, I might have to take another run at.
No comments:
Post a Comment