Project Bacon: Maple Bourbon Bacon

Part two of our bacon journey allows us at Three Dogs to bring together three of our favorite flavors: pork, maple, and bourbon.  What could be better than that combination?

I found my inspiration while scrolling through my Flipboard feed one evening.  There was a picture of one of the best looking pieces of smoked pork belly I have ever seen.  The article linked to a website called Salt and Smoke.  The recipe was for a maple and bourbon cured pork belly that is smoked, then sliced for bacon.  Here is a link to the recipe.

For once, I followed a recipe exactly as published.  First, you mix all of the ingredients together, place in a glass dish, then coat your pork belly in the resulting maple bourbon paste.

Perfect meat to fat ratio!

Our curing mixture, all ready for a pork belly exfoliation.

One the cure is applied, place everything into a plastic bag, along with any remaining liquid and salt.

Place your curing pork belly in the refrigerator.  Every day for seven days, flip your pork belly, making sure to evenly distribute the liquid and massaging the salt and liquids into the meat.  This ensures an even distribution of flavor and curing salt across the pork belly.

After seven days, I rinsed the meat to remove any excess salt from the meat.  Here is the final product, ready for the smoker.

Then, I went outside and lit my smoker, bringing it to a temperature of 200 F.  Once I reached that temperature, I added some pecan wood to the ash pan for smoke flavor.  I choose pecan for the mild flavor that it adds to the meat.  I also thought it would pair well with the maple and bourbon.

I smoked the pork belly at 200 F until it reached an internal temperature of 145 F.  Then, I wrapped the belly in foil, placed into a plastic bag, and put in the refrigerator to chill overnight.  Chilling the meat makes it easier to slice the next day.  Placing the meat in a plastic bag helps to intensify the smoke flavor.

The next day Hope, my slicer extraordinaire, sliced this belly for packaging.

Of course we fried up a few slices to try them out.

Maple flavor, check.  Bourbon, check.  Mellow pecan flavor?  Yep, it brought it all together.  Overall, this is a good bacon.  It was a good first try with this recipe.  I used turbinado sugar instead of the brown sugar in the original recipe.  Think that next time I will use the brown sugar and perhaps increase the bourbon and maple syrup amounts for more intense flavors.

Thanks for stopping by,

Bill

My Favorite Food Sites, 2014 Edition

A question I get asked occasionally is "Why do you take the time to write about food?"  Although, that question usually comes after the hybrid question/statement of "Don't you think it is weird to take pictures of your food?"  The answer to number two is "no" and let me tell you why by answering question number one.  The quick answer is that my friends and family are spread out all over the United States and this is an opportunity for us to stay connected.  The long answer is that I have always liked to write.  After a horrible out of body experience in high school freshman English (Yep, a solid F, partly due to my indifference and mostly due to the worst English teacher of all time), I had better experiences starting my sophomore year.  Mrs. Weddell was an outstanding teacher that recognized my love of reading and found a way to translate that into writing.  Couple that with my Drill Instructor of a professor at the University of Pittsburgh in my freshman composition class and I learned to like to write as well.  It is not Pulitzer material, but I think it is not that bad.  While I have dreamed of writing the next great American spy novel, my imagination is just not that good.  But, I do like to cook and eat.  So, I decided that I would partner the two hobbies together in 2012 and what you have is this blog.  If nobody read this ongoing blog, it wouldn't have mattered to me.  I was just satisfied in contributing something meaningful, slightly educational, and informational to an increasingly sensationalistic Internet.  For those of you who visit this site and comment from time to time, I thank you.  Please keep coming back.  Some ideas would be appreciated as well.  I now have a better understanding of the term Writers Block.

As you can imagine, there are lots of other sites out there for food, BBQ or otherwise.  I faithfully read these sites as they provide good ideas and inspiration in my kitchen.  I have also been lucky enough to forge relationships with these authors, either in person or electronically, based upon our main passion: cooking.  I would like take the time to mention these sites and encourage you to visit them.  They are all good people with good content on their sites.  These are not placed in any order.  I have just listed them as they come to my mind.  

Again, thanks for stopping by.  Hope and I wish you a healthy and happy New Year!

Mad Meat Genius:

Headed to the San Fransisco Bay area?  Need some tips on where to eat and what to see?  Chilebrown and Ms. Goofy have tons of fun driving their Racing Honda all over the Bay Area to restaurants, butcher shops, and markets of note.  You will also get a heavy dose of recipes and product reviews.  Don't forget to read the comments below each post.  Chilebrown has a foil in the Great White Hunter.  Their banter is priceless.  

Eatapedia:

Team Eatapedia is one of the teams that we compete against in New York.  John has a website and a Facebook page as well.  Their focus is BBQ, but there are a wide range of recipes on their site, including homemade sushi, Asian, and the territory that I am afraid to go, desserts.  John has a passion and it shows.  Stop by his site and have a look around.

Gusfacegrillah:

Gus and his wife, Mrs. Grillah, hail from the land Down Under and it shows in his cooking.  Gus handles the griller and smoker.  Mrs. Grillah handles the desserts and the tedious work for which Gus does not have the patience.  Bold flavors (a Vegemite hamburger?) and a Aussie twist on American BBQ classics.  With a touch of humor; a review of the Qantas inflight BBQ was a favorite, Gus's site is a good read.  

Heavy D BBQ:

Dave, A.K.A. "Heavy D" is also another team that we compete against in the New York area.  Dave gets my Ironman Award for 2014.  Believe it or not, competition BBQ is tiring.  If I had to compare it to any sport, it would be golf.  Just a slow, steady grind that lasts for a whole weekend.  Dave blew out his achilles in May and competed the whole season in a walking boot in constant pain.  I would have given up after one competition.  Dave and his wife hail from South Africa and it shows in their outgoing personality.  I especially like the biltong he brings to competitions.  Stop by his Facebook page and have a look around.  Good recipes and some of the best food porn on the net.  

Patrons of the Pit:

PotP's site is worth it just for the writing.  He spins a yarn with each post.  He comes from Minnesota, so he does provide some good cold weather cooking tips.  His recipes are spot on and again, another great site for killer food porn.  

The PG Plate:

The PG Plate is a round up of food blogs published in one easy to access place.  It consists of recipes and reviews of local Pittsburgh area eateries.  The recipes cross the spectrum of all cooking styles.  If I need a good seasonal recipe, this is the first place I look.  Full disclosure, Three Dogs BBQ shows up on this site from time to time.  I include this site here because it is a great resource.

Cowgirl's Country Life:

Who hasn't tooled around Jeanie's site?  Jeanie was the inspiration for the Three Dogs blog.  She provided tips and advice and reviewed the blog before it went on the Internet.  Her recipes are fresh and new.  She is focuses on game recipes, but is also well versed in canning, BBQ, and cast iron cooking.  Her site is worth a look if you are looking for something that just might be a little different.  

Hunter Angler Gardener Cook:

I have only found this site within the last week and I have only scratched the surface.  It is loaded with information on how to cook various types of wild game.  As The Oldest drops off meat from his latest hunting adventures, this is the first place I will look for ideas on how to prepare these dishes.  

Assorted Flipboard Magazines:

What, you don't use Flipboard?  Shame on you!  Most apps that you find on the Internet are average/functional at best.  But Flipboard is hands down the best app out there and the great part it is free.  This app takes Internet surfing to a new level.  It allows you to subscribe to Internet Magazines that focus on the content that matters to you.  So, some of the better food magazines that I recommend on there are:

Mason Dixon BBQ

Grilling and Smoking Barbecue

BBQ's Sweet Smoke and Live Fire

Hispanic Foodie

The NZ Meat Company

Well, that about sums it up for this post.  Please do visit any of the sites above if you are looking for a recipe or a review.  It will be well worth your time, I promise.

Thanks for stopping by,

Bill

Four Ways to Cook a Canadian, Part One: Jerky

Every year hundreds of thousands of Canadians, mostly undocumented, slip into the United States.  No, these Canadians do not come to our country for tax free clothing and duty free liquor.  They fly into our country and build condos made of leaves and grass on prime waterfront ponds and lakes and breed.  A lot.  Any golfer that has hit a errant shot towards a pond containing these Canadians knows what I am taking about.  Geese.

Photo courtesy of all-free-download.com

Lots of them. The pond across the street from our house is a popular overnight stopover for Canadian geese during the migration and their summer vacation.  That is, until the coyotes get wind of our  northern visitors.  Anyway, enough humor.  Lets prepare our geese.

The Oldest had a few nice days during goose season this year.  He tried pan frying a few breasts and complained that it was the most inedible game that he had ever eaten.  He said it tasted like and had the consistency of tennis shoes that had sat in a locker for a month.  I can agree.  Any Canadian I know would be tough, chewy, and slightly gamy.  So, The Oldest decided to change his game plan try his hand at some goose jerky.

So, first he cleaned and sliced his goose breasts to about 1/4-1/2 inch thickness.  Then, he applied his seasonings.  One was a dry store bought BBQ rub.  The other two were wet marinades: one was plain old Italian salad dressing and the second was a mixture of various BBQ sauces from the refrigerator.  The breasts sat in their seasonings for 24 hours in the refrigerator.  The breasts were dropped off at my house for me to provide the heat and smoke.

The method is simple.  I placed in a smoker set for 200 F with some pecan in the ash pan for smoke flavor.  The jerky was placed on wire racks and smoked until all of the moisture was gone, about seven hours.  Half way through the smoking, I rotated the racks and flipped the goose tenders so ensure uniform drying.  Here is a picture of the finished product.

The dry and wet BBQ seasonings were pretty good.  The Italian dressing was OK, but not my favorite.  Overall, the breasts dried nicely and had that chewy texture and deep flavor that reminds you of jerky.  A success according to The Oldest.

As a bonus, The Oldest left us with some untouched breasts, tenders and whole, for experimentation. So, over the next week or so, I will be rolling out some methods for preparing goose.  Hopefully, they will be successes.  Stay tuned.

Thanks for stopping by,

Bill

Smoked Clam Dip

Back in my late teens and early 20's, when you could still buy albums on vinyl, rent a movie at a real video store, and Johnny Carson was still on TV, I worked at a local grocery store to help put myself through college.  It was an independent store that catered to a higher end clientele.  More specifically, we catered to the Jewish community in the area.  I loved when the high holidays rolled around: fresh hamantaschen, challah, and store made brisket that made your mouth water.  That just scratches the surface of the tasty treats available.  Since it was a higher end store, we carried some higher end products.  One of those products was a clam dip made by Breakstones.  Very good stuff.  I would treat myself from time to time with a tub of that and a bag of chips.  Ever since I left that job and moved on I have always looked for that dip in every grocery store that I have shopped.  I have never been lucky enough to have found it anywhere.  While I was walking through the local Big Bird this past weekend, I noticed that clams were on sale.  So, with 25 year old memories in mind, I grabbed some clams and headed home to the labs to see if I couldn't whip up something that came close.

As a base for this dip, I used my standard base for creamy dips:

8 oz of light cream cheese
1/2 cup light mayo
1/2 cup light sour cream

I also use this base to make my Smoked Steelhead dip, but that is a post for another day.  I digress.

I placed my cream cheese in a bowl to soften (note, low fat takes longer to soften on the counter, so plan accordingly) and went outside to fire up my smoker.  My set temperature was 250 F.  I came back inside and washed my clams, I bought the Big Neck variety, and placed them in a foil pan.

When the smoker was at temperature, I placed some alder in the ash pan for some smoke flavor, then I placed the clams on the middle rack of my smoker.  After about 20 minutes the clams were starting to peek open and release their briny liquid.  I decided to go for 45 minutes of total smoke time.  Here is the pan after removing from the smoker.

I drained the liquid and set aside, then Hope and I started to break apart the clams.  They were very resistant to our efforts.  I made a mental note to cook for 1 hour the next time.

Once the meat was removed, I minced the clams.  Not fine chunks, not large chunks, somewhere in between.   This picture is before mincing.

So, to complete the recipe, to my base I added:

The meat from 10 Big Neck clams.  I would probably use 15 next time.
1/4 cup of the reserved clam juice
2 tsp of Oakridge BBQ Game Bird and Chicken Rub
1 tsp hot sauce (I used Texas Pete)

I added to clam juice for some smoky and salty flavor.  I also wanted the chilled dip to be think, yet not break a chip or a cracker when being scooped from the bowl.  I used the Oakridge rub because it contains some of the flavors I was thinking of adding anyway: chili pepper, coriander, onion, garlic, and yellow mustard.  Hey, this is an experiment, right?

I mixed until smooth, then placed in the refrigerator to chill.  Here is the final product:

I tried it first.  My, my.  Not the same as Breakstones, but even better.  A hint of smoke, salty brine, a bit of kick from the rub, a very nice combination of flavors.  Hope was up next and tried some on a cracker.  Sometimes she is polite about my creations and I know when she doesn't like what I have made.  But, the eyes gave it away this time.  A home run!

As always, you do not need a smoker to make your clams.  Just lightly steam them and you will have the same cooked clam and brine, minus the smoke flavor.  If you happen to have some Liquid Smoke around, I would start with 1/8 tsp and add to taste.  This dip will go well with chips, crackers, or cut up vegetables.  Give this dip a try.  You will not be disappointed.

Thanks for stopping by,

Bill