This is an absolute gold offering from Pauly. If this is the only line of this post that you actually read… don’t. Read it all please. That is about as polite as I’m gonna get. I especially like the inclusion of the bacon sarnie. One of my all time favourites. My pastry chef at the time and good friend Marky used to make them for us every Sunday. You don’t care? Well I don’t care about you either. BTW fresh white bread please… and make it cheap. G

Jen’s challenge 5 dishes from 5 cuisines with bacon…

So obviously Jen doesn’t think we have enough going on in our very busy lives, and to be honest I think a normal request would be can you write me a dish with bacon in it… who the fuck conjures up challenges with 5 cuisines in the one challenge, EVIL PEOPLE, that’s who!!!

But I do really like Jen, evil she may be but who am I to throw stones I live in a god damn glass house so I reckon it’s not a good idea to start the old stone throwing game. Or even to call a kettle black or to allow rolling stones to gather moss, you get the idea…

So I except said challenge and will from this point on write only of dishes containing cured pig a.k.a bacon, and will continue with such writings till a number greater then 4 and less then 6 is achieved a.k.a 5.

Since it seems to me to a little rich to ask for so much I may condense the recipes or I may just give ideas and let your mind fill in the blanks, or I may even learn an ancient language long since forgotten by main stream and write the first cookbook written in sand scrip which only contains recipes with bacon in them… but most likely I will not do the latter as quite frankly that almost seems like more hard work then the challenge it self.

Let the nonsense seize and the rambling begin…

Dish 1 Japanese…  sashimi king fish with a bacon fat & mirin dressing

• I will give you a little credit and guess you know that sashimi kingfish doesn’t need any cooking just slice paper thin and lay out on a plate
• The dressing is reasonably simple it is 2 streaky rashers of bacon cooked to release all fat then chop up bacon and add back to fat
• Then add 2 teaspoons lemon juice, ¼ cup orange juice, 2 tablespoon tamari (wheat soy)
• Make sure you only add dressing seconds before serving otherwise the citrus will cook the fish

Dish 2 English… bacon buttie (unsure of correct spelling)

• This is one of my favourite thing in the world so I thought fuck it I’ll include it
• Take two pieces of bread and either toast them or leave fresh, lather with butter and your choice of sauce, I like tomato (Heinz)
• Fill bread with lots of crispy bacon
• A little cracked black pepper
• That’s it nothing to fancy just good old fashioned English cuisine

Dish 3 French… coq au vin

• Another classic and one of my favourites
• To make this you will need to cut 1 chicken into pieces or get yourself 1 kg of chicken legs, then seal them in a pan and place in an oven proof dish with high sides
• Then cook off 1 large onion diced, 2 stalks of celery, 1 leek diced, 2 rashers of bacon diced, 3 garlic cloves sliced in a little butter and oil
• Pour onion mix over chicken
• Clean fry pan by pouring ½ a bottle of red wine in and then reduce by half
• Pour over chicken, add 2 bay leaves, 4 sprigs thyme, 1 can of crushed tomatoes, 1/2cup chicken stock, 4 peppercorns, 1 cup of button mushrooms
• Cover the dish and place in low oven (150c) and cook for 2 hours or until the chicken is tender
• Serve with crusty bread and a huge smile on your face because this shit is lovely

Dish 4 Thai… crispy bacon & fish salad

• For the salad component get what ever is crisp and fresh like green papaya, daikon, apple, bean sprouts, mint, coriander and chilli and slice it up all nice and fine then mix and place to one side
• For the crispy fish, cook a piece of fish in the oven until its cooked then cool down, shred with your fingers then deep fry in oil until it is brown and crispy
• For the crispy bacon slice really fine then fry in a pan until it is nice and crispy
• For the dressing mix 1 teaspoon of shrimp paste, 1 teaspoon tamarind water, 2 tablespoon of lime juice, 1 tablespoon palm sugar, 1 large red chilli chopped fine… mix all together and check the balance of flavour (you should be able to just tweak it by adding a little of one of the ingredients)
• Mix everything together adding only as much dressing as needed to just coat all ingredients

Dish 5 Italian… cabonara

• Firstly the coolest thing just happened I wrote the line above and the computer thought the grammar at the beginning of the line was wrong so high lighted in green, then thought the spelling of the last word was wrong so highlighted in red and with the white page it made the Italian flag…amazeballs!!!  I’ve tried to emulate it but not nearly as cool.
• This is a dish that has been done to death but if done right it is truly exceptional
• Cook of your pasta, I don’t care how you do this I’ll be honest
• Fry off onion, bacon and mushrooms in a pan until they look really nice
• Add a splash of white wine and reduce by half
• Add a splash of cream (not heaps) and reduce by half
• Whack your pasta in and toss around
• Add a handful of parmesan, crack some black pepper in
• Then take off heat and crack an egg in and mix in really well
• Serve immediately

As you can see I haven’t chosen really hard dishes for you a really just wrote down the dishes in which I like to enjoy bacon in and I really do love bacon… in fact this blog should really be called BACONISTHEBESTSHITEVER.COM.AU