Bacon Jam and Sous Vide Egg Yolk Sandwich

I love egg yolks on toast, but find rubbery egg whites a crime against nature. I used to make Eggs Mollet in my Chef’s Choice egg cooker and carefully (and frequently unsuccessfully)  try peel off the whites for a spreadable egg yolk “curd” for my bacon and egg sandwich.

 

Since I bought my Sous Vide Supreme, I have learned to cook eggs at 64C for 1 hour to produce eggs that can be denuded of the (nasty, jiggly) white; leaving a yolk that is the consistency of lemon curd that can be spread on a slice of toast to make the perfect bacon and egg yolk sandwich.  I usually make this with strips of my home-cured bacon, but I was very pleased with the bacon jam version.

 

I don’t have the vocabulary to describe how wonderful this was with fresh ground pepper, Maldon sea salt and Lurpak butter on white toast.

Cozy Winter Lunch | Potato – Leek soup and Croques-Monsieur

I found this potato – leek soup on David Lebovitz’s blog. It was wonderful with the sandwich. This may be one of my favorite lunches.

 

Butter, leeks, home-made chicken stock (the recipe calls for water, but I figured a couple of cups of stock substituted for some of the water wouldn’t hurt), bay leaves and thyme, russet potatoes (had some sitting around), white pepper and chili powder.

 

Sweating the leeks in the butter.

 

Simmering until the potatoes are tender.

 

Buzzed with an immersion blender.

 

Gruyere (got it sliced into “sandwich slices” at the charcuterie counter), sourdough bread, honey-baked ham I had vacuum-sealed and frozen from Christmas.

 

Two layers of cheese and ham.

 

Microplaned a bit of cheese on top of the skim of butter.

 

Baked, then broiled a bit to brown the cheese. It’s wonderful that something so simple can be so good.

Savory Chicken Salad

I wanted to make some chicken salad from the leftover rosemary-garlic paste roasted chicken my husband cooked the other night. I’m not a big fan of the fruit-laced chicken salads (apples, grapes?!) so I headed straight for the umami.

 

This is from my prior batch of pancetta flavored bacon. (My husband suggested the name, but I’m too embarrassed to call it that anymore.) This section was so fatty I didn’t want to eat it as bacon, so I saved it for pseudo lardons.

 

This is about 8 slices cut into 1/4 “ strips and fried.

 

I’ll chop and “toast” these pecans in the bacon fat.

 

Smells real good about now.

 

Minced shallot and garlic.

 

The shallots have been “sweated” and I’m adding the garlic for the last 30 seconds.

 

Draining the lardons and the pecan-shallot-garlic mix.

 

Shredded rosemary-garlic roasted chicken.

 

It was too late after work to make my own mayo.

 

Love this Louisiana Cajun seasoning.

 

Gotta have some of this.

 

About 1/2 cup of mayo, 2/3 cup of sour cream, 1 tablespoon of Cajun seasoning, 1 tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, plus Maldon sea salt and freshly ground pepper (not shown).

 

I over-toasted the bun in the broiler, but it was still delicious.

Easy Hamburger Buns | Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day

Since my husband was making some lovely pulled pork to make barbequed pork sandwiches, I was happy that I had some Buttermilk White Bread mix from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day already mixed in the refrigerator.

 

This is the mix in the bucket.

 

I had a hamburger pan from earlier experiments. Sometimes it is good to hang on to baking pans you never thought you’d use again.

 

I love the “shooting through glass” option on my camera.

 

The pulled pork with barbeque sauce, homemade mayonnaise, homemade buns, beans from our garden, and fried potatoes.

BLT Challenge Entry | Best Interpretation of a Classic

 

Italianate BLT

Since I made my bacon with a pancetta cure, I decided to give my BLT an Italian motif.

The Components

• The First Bread “The Ciapita”, Craig Ponsford’s ciabatta from Artisan Baking by Maggie Glezer using commercial yeast.
• The Veggies Homegrown cherry tomatoes (I wish I had thought to grow some Roma tomatoes), lettuce grown indoors in my AeroGarden (you can hardly grow lettuce outside after February in South Louisiana), and homemade pesto from my basil.
• The Mayonnaise Hand-whisked using my neighbor’s free-range egg (I trade him bacon for the eggs; our breakfast club) using Michael Ruhlman’s recipe from Ratio.
• The Bacon Home-cured, pancetta-style, hickory-smoked (can I get another adjective?) bacon using Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn’s recipe for pancetta for the cure mix; and following the instructions for hot-smoking bacon in Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing.

The Construction

Salt and drain cherry tomato slices.

-----

Apply mayo to top and bottom of bread and skim a bit of pesto on the bottom.

-----

Distribute cherry tomatoes over the bottom. I like the way the small slices are easy to eat without pulling a slice of tomato out of the sandwich.

-----

Add the lettuce and fried bacon.

-----

Oh, my! This was good

BLT Challenge Entry | Best Overall Preparation

 

I chose this version for the best overall preparation category because I think the bread turned out closer to the ideal for the type.

The Components

• The Second Bread  The Master Recipe:  Ciabatta from Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day by Jeff Hertzberg & Zoe Francois with commercial yeast.
• The Veggies  Organic, homegrown tomato and lettuce grown indoors in my AeroGarden (you can hardly grow lettuce outside after February in South Louisiana).
• The Mayonnaise  Hand-whisked using my neighbor’s free-range egg (I trade him bacon for the eggs) using Michael Ruhlman’s recipe from Ratio.
• The Bacon  Home-cured, pancetta-style, hickory-smoked (can I get another adjective?) bacon using Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn’s recipe for pancetta for the cure mix; and following the instructions for hot-smoking bacon in Charcuterie: The Craft of Salting, Smoking and Curing.

 

The Construction

Salt tomato slices and drain on paper towels so the sandwich isn’t too sloppy.

-----

 

Nickel-thick layer of mayonnaise on top and bottom of bread. Lettuce on the bottom to help protect the bread from still-juicy tomato slices.

-----

Layer tomato slices (with a little sea salt [I wiped most of it off blotting the tomato slices] and fresh-ground pepper) and bacon on bottom piece of bread.

-----

Looks like two Frankenstein monsters grinning at each other.