Bacon Mayo

Eons ago (OK it was last September, so nearly a year, then) I reviewed a book called Fat, by Jennifer McLagan. It's a very thought-provoking book to say the least, and after reading I decided to become a hoarder of fat.

When I say "hoarder of fat" I mean that in the mildest of ways. I skimmed all the beef fat off of my braised beef ribs to use in McLagan's cornish pasty recipe, wrapping it well after letting it solidify, and then freezing it. It's still there. I also started collecting my bacon fat whenever I cooked bacon. Because I don't eat that much bacon, and I tend to buy leaner bacon to begin with, it took me just over 11 months to save up the 1/2 cup of bacon fat required for McLagan's Bacon Mayonnaise recipe found on page 101. I kept the fat in a small ramekin, covered at all times, in my fridge. I finally, finally had half a cup last week.

Here is the recipe.

Bacon Mayonnaise, from Fat by Jennifer McLagan, page 101

1 egg yolk

3/4 tsp Dijon mustard

1 tsp freshly squeezed lemon juice

Sea salt & freshly ground pepper, to taste

1/2 cup liquid bacon fat

Combine egg yolk, mustard, & lemon juice in small bowl of a food processr or blender and process to mix. Season with salt & pepper.

Have the bacon fat liquid but not hot. With the machine running, gradually add bacon fat until the mixture starts to stiffen & emulsify, about 2 minutes. Once it begins to emulsify, add the fat more quickly. Adjust seasoning. If it's too thick, thin with 1 tsp of boiling water.

I have a small food processor but even so, the yolk/mustard/lemon juice mixture was too small an amount to properly mix in the food processor. I ended up having to whisk everything in a bowl by hand after the first ingredients kind of stuck to the bottom of the food processor bowl.

Here is the finished product:

It tasted...OK. Not overpoweringly of bacon, surprisingly. In fact, it was a tad bland. To test it out, I put in on a great burger I made, served with grilled veggies.

It actually complemented the burger a lot, lending it a bacony flavour and an extra juiciness to the meat, since the mayo basically melted when it came into contact with the hot burger. Will this replace Hellmann's for me? No way. I can't see this being as versatile as Hellmann's and it just isn't the same. But it was a good experiement.

No, no more bacon fat hoarding!

Becoming a Localvore: Local Eggs

One of the things I wanted to do to help green up my kitchen and my eating was to buy local eggs. The eggs at the local overpriced grocery store are not necessarily local and they are most definitely overpriced. The cheapest eggs, which are, honestly, the ones I usually buy because I'm on a budget, also come in a non-recyclable styrofoam container. The yolks are pale yellow and the eggs are pretty tasteless. They go for $2.79 - $2.99/dozen. The next cheapest ones are $4.99/dozen. I get way better eggs from Wally World in Colville, WA, for a far better price.

Luckily, there are a couple of people who sell eggs from their farms in this area, and one of them happens to be a co-worker of my SIL's. My SIL regularly gets eggs from this gal, who lives right near the border in a small farming community called Paterson, which is about a five minute drive from town. These eggs come from free-range chickens who are not pumped full of chemicals at all, and she charges $3/dozen. I got my first dozen last Monday!

These eggs are beautiful, huge, and have bright yolks! I am in egg heaven!

Tofu Tuesdays #1

Oh yeah - another series!

I was inspired to start this tofu series after writing this post about greening up the kitchen and my eating. In that post, I mentioned an article in Bon Appetit called "50 Easy Ways to Eat Green", and idea #39 was to eat more tofu. I used to eat tofu somewhat regularly in university and every so often when I was on Weight Watchers. I kind of got over it though, and haven't had any in quite some time. I haven't really missed it. My main knock against it is that it's very processed, as are many tofu products, and my focus has been to eat more unprocessed, whole foods instead of stuff that bears no resemblance to it's natural form. But, as the article states, tofu is quite green, and takes less resources to produce than your average pound of beef (which I eat rarely anyway). Replacing 1lb of beef with 1lb of tofu per month apparently saves 20,000 gallons of water annually.

Fine. I can add some tofu to my diet.

Enter Canadian Living Magazine, February 2009 issue, and a section on a Chinese New Year menu, which included this recipe for Bok Choy, Mushroom, and Tofu Soup. It looked simple and delicious, and has about 59 calories per serving. Now, this soup is supposed to be part of a larger meal, so it's not too hearty on its own. In order to make it more filling and a little more...ah...fun, shall we say, I added some fresh chow mein noodles to it - because, let's face it, noodles make everything better, right? I also made my own stock once more, as seen here, only leaving out the lemon and adding ginger and some celery tops instead.

The soup turned out really well and I used medium tofu instead of firm. Big difference! Not rubbery or chewy and its softness took in the flavour of the soup much more than firm tofu would have. I'll have to remember this little tofu tip for the future.

Bon appetit!