We feast on biscuits with sausage gravy, and potato and cheddar cheese frittata with a variety of salsas. There is citrus salad, sliced avocado, a bloody Mary or two, and the King of Food, bacon and plenty of it. In years gone by, I slaved at the stove frying up strips of bacon. The popping and spitting bacon grease ruined many a Christmas sweatshirt, and the house would smell of bacon for days. That is not a bad smell, bacon; but it gets old.
In recent years I have seen recipes for baking bacon in the oven to avoid the mess. This year I thought I would give it a try. I preheated the oven to 400 degrees, lined a large cookie sheet with aluminum foil folded up all around the edges to catch the grease. I put baking racks on top of the foil and carefully placed bacon to ensure I used up every single blessed strip. I loosely laid a piece of foil on top to keep my oven clear of splatter, and then baked it for about 25 minutes. The recipe said 10 - 20 minutes, but I was nervous so I let it go a little too long.
It was good, although not as greasy or succulent as fried bacon. How long you bake it determines how crisp it gets. I left mine in long enough that it practically disintegrated in your mouth. The pieces broke when you tried to pick them up. There wasn't any leftover so I am assuming it was good enough, but next time I'll shoot for 20 minutes.
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| Fried, not baked: better |
We didn’t eat bacon (many vegetarians in family), but we did eat too much of everything else yesterday. Today, we are paying for that. Thankfully, we had enough Tums to go around.
ReplyDeleteHa! Fun to do on occasion. But yes, there is usually some form of Hell to pay for it. I could have used some Tums last night.
DeleteGood idea for the bacon. I will be there for next Christmas brunch, I like virgin Marys will plenty of celery and a nice splash of hot sauce.
ReplyDeleteYou would be welcome!
DeleteOh, your food sounds wonderful. Bacon is a favorite here, too, but I hate the mess and trouble of cooking it. I'll have to try the oven method.
ReplyDeleteIt really is amazing that it works and there is no mess. Just don't bake it as long as I did. :)
DeleteSublime, I got hungry just reading this Post!
ReplyDeleteThen my work here is done!
DeleteA good meal indeed. Here it would be labelled "A full English breakfast" although it would also have constituents that might seem alien to you. Black pudding for one thing, a slice of fried bread, fried tomato, a sausage, plus a tbsp of Heniz baked beans.
ReplyDeleteWere those real Bloody Marys? With gin or vodka? In the plural? That would worry most middle-class Brits.
Then, there's bacon. As I recall it only came in one form in the USA - thinly cut, and narrowly cut. It fries quickly and becomes brittle quickly: in the UK we call that streaky bacon. Many prefer it. But we also have back or prime back: wider in both senses and intended to retain some of its floppiness when cooked. It's more expensive than streaky and offers a more meaty texture. (Checked this with VR. She says there was such a thing as "Canadian bacon" in the US which seems to resemble English back bacon.)
Our oven has a grill section which applies heat from above only. From time to time VR uses this for bacon. Less spattery
"Preheated to 400 degrees" is quite alarming. But then the UK - somewhat reluctantlly - switched to the metric system while I was in the USA (from 1965 to 1972) and I am now used to Celsius rather than Fahrenheit. 400 deg C is 752 deg F, well on the way to blast furnace heat.
Must break off. We're meeting Professional Bleeder for lunch at Simply Thai.
I am familiar with "A full English breakfast" and I am quite a fan. When I was in NYC a couple years ago with my daughter and granddaughter we went to an English-style Pub every day for breakfast just for the over-the-top breakfast. Nothing else compared. Loved it, although I have to confess I avoided the black pudding. There is also an Irish pub (Raglan Road)in Disney Springs that we sometimes go to, but never early enough for breakfast. Our loss! As it turns out, we are going there today, meeting family mid-afternoon for a meal. Terrible time for a meal. But it was the only time we could get reservations. It is a very popular place to eat. You can amuse yourself with the Americanized offerings and ridiculous Disney prices at http://www.raglanroad.com/
DeleteYes, VR is correct, one can buy Canadian bacon here - but in my mind it is more similar to thin sliced ham than it is to (streaky)bacon. The bacon makers in the U.S. now also sell thicker sliced bacon, but I imagine it is still not up to UK standards. We even have a UK section in the ethnic part of our grocery store that sells your version of Heinz beans, which I often buy because they are lower salt content than the ones Heinz sells as the U.S. equivalent.
Vodka. Were I to buy gin,it would be Hendricks, and it would go towards gin and tonic. I will count on you to point me to a better product.
Today I heard on the news that it's national bacon day. Enjoy.
ReplyDeleteYay!
DeleteAarrgh! The sense of betrayal (by the Irish) from biting into a chip and finding zucchini and not potato.
ReplyDeleteThe problem with Hendricks is price. In the UK it costs very nearly twice that of a bottle of bog standard gin (eg, Booths, Gordons). Given the dilution ratio of gin-to-tonic in a G&T it hardly seems worth it; the Martini would seem to be Hendricks natural habitat. The best compromise for me is Tanqueray. But try a tiny sip of neat gin in all instances to be sure you haven't been seduced by outward circumstances. At present gin is a terrifically snob drink and you could be at risk. Mind you, you're supposed to live in a classless society so you should be able to drink meths without losing any social status.
"supposed to" are the key words.
DeleteWe didn't have a Christmas day big breakfast but did have one on the next. Bacon is nearly always in the mix and most often baked over fried. Delicious. And instead of biscuits, pumpkin pancakes. Yum.
ReplyDeleteYour breaksfast brunch menu sounds delicious.
Happy New Year!
Pumpkin pancakes! I want some.
DeleteI'm not a mammal-eater myself, but I do cook more lavishly than normal on the holidays. It's a time of celebration and reveling in food and good company.
ReplyDeleteYou are wise to avoid meat. One of my New Year's resolutions is to make more vegetarian fare. I just copied the cabbage soup recipe on your blog and I'm looking forward to making it.
DeleteActually, I'm looking more closely at the ingredients, and I can't wait to make it. Red cabbage!!! The perfect excuse to buy a whole head of it (the only way they sell it at my store) and use half for this glorious stew and the other half for salads. Thank you for this recipe. It is a treasure.
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