Bacon Chutney – Showing Bacon Some Love

Savory Bacon Chutney

I know that I have been really bad about posting lately, and I am sorry.  I could go into who, what, why, but it really doesn’t matter…does it?…especially since this post is all about bacon.  (Plus, I have quite a backlog of recipes just waiting to go up.)

My bacon journey started last month when Not Quite Nigella posted her recipe for bacon jam.  An all-out obsession kicked in and I followed the trail of bacon jam through many a twist and turn.  Most of the recipes I found were for a “sweet” version, which I understand but I wanted something a little more savory that I could literally swirl into anything.  (My thought is that you can always add sweet to a dish, but it is very difficult to remove sweet from a dish.)

I  also wasn’t too jazzed about cooking something on the stove top for 2 hours and having to tend to it.  (This is probably why risotto isn’t quite right when I make it.)  I’ve got too many other things to do than making sure my house doesn’t burn down because I let a pan of something go dry on the stove.  So I turned to my old friend – the braise.

Craig could tell I had an obsession of some sort banging around in my head.  While he wanted to help, and usually can, I opted to leave him out of this one.  He believes that doing anything beyond cooking bacon in a pan is tantamount to treason.  Of course, once he eats said traitorous bacon creation, he usually smiles from ear to ear and cleans his plate.

Whipping up a cup of this before Thanksgiving should make all those leftovers taste that much better.  Think about it…smear it on your turkey sandwich, mix it into leftover veggies, swirl it into leftover mashed potatoes, and it would probably even taste really good added to the leftover cranberry sauce.  What doesn’t bacon taste good with?

Relationship Advice

No matter how much he wants to help, sometimes you need to just work things through yourself.  Guys like to fix things, and most of the time they don’t like to fix things that, to them, are not broken.  To Craig, there is nothing broken about fried strips of bacon.  For the record, I don’t think that concept is broken either, but it’s good to think outside the box sometimes.  In this instance, I knew that if I told him what I was up to, he would have given me a bunch of grief before being willing to try this dish.

Makes 1 Cup

Ingredients

• 1 Pound Smoked Bacon (thick cut or un-sliced slab)
• 1 Medium Brown Onion (sliced thin)

Rub

• 1/4 Cup Brown Sugar
• 1 Teaspoon Kosher Salt
• 1/2 Teaspoon Ginger
• 1/4 Teaspoon Ground Mustard
• 1/4 Teaspoon Ground Cloves
• 1/4 Teaspoon Chipotle Powder
• 1/4 Teaspoon Dried Thyme
• 1/4 Teaspoon Dried Rosemary (crushed)
• 1/4 Teaspoon Black Pepper (ground)
• 1/4 Teaspoon Onion Powder
• 1/4 Teaspoon Garlic Powder

Braising Liquid

• 1/2 Cup Dry White Wine
• 1 Tablespoon Cider Vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
• 1 Tablespoon Molasses

Directions

In a bowl, combine all of the dry ingredients and mix well.  Place the slab of bacon into a dutch oven and sprinkle both sides of bacon with dry rub.  Pat the dry rub into the sides of the bacon (use all of the rub).  Cover the dutch oven and refrigerate for a minimum of 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 250 degrees Farenheit.

In a small bowl, combine the ingredients for the braising liquid and mix well.  Microwave on high for 1 minute.

Remove the bacon from the refrigerator and sprinkle with onions.  Pour the braising liquid into the dutch oven.  Do not pour on top of bacon.

Cover the dutch oven and braise in oven for 2 1/2 hours.

Remove pan from the oven and place on burner.  Remove lid and, over medium high heat,  reduce liquid in pot until it is thick and glaze like.

Pour contents of pan into food processor.  Pulse bacon mixture until it is a thick, but chunky consistency.

Pour into serving dish or lidded jar.  If not using immediately, refrigerate.  (Let the bacon chutney cool to room temperature before putting the lid on it and putting it into the refrigerator.)

Tags: Bacon, Bacon Jam, Bacon Recipes, Easy Recipes

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Tagged as: Bacon, Bacon Jam, Bacon Recipes, Easy Recipes