Pig - - Page 21

by Russell Warnick

Three Little Pigs

It’s no secret that we here at Endless Simmer consider ourselves bacon aficionados. We eat bacon, we drink bacon and even make bacon. But do we really know what it is? Over the years I’ve proclaimed my love of English bacon and boasted its superiority over your traditional American bacon, but we’ve never looked at why that is. I’m no butcher but I’ve eaten enough bacon to have a fair understanding of the different types on offer.

From clockwise left, we have Canadian, standard American and English bacon, cooked in a little oil in a non-stick frying pan. Here’s a quick lesson.

by BS

One More for the List

Fact: In this bacon-saturated age, it is practically impossible to come up with a new bacon-flavored product. When there is already bacon popcorn, bacon ice cream, and bacon apple pie — not to mention bacon ketchup and bacon lube — what else is left? I mean, what else could they possibly come up with?

Um….why yes, I would like my coffee to taste like bacon.

So I stand corrected. Maple-bacon coffee now exists, just in time for holiday shopping season (hint, hint).

Bacon — proving people wrong since 1438.

More Bacon: Recipes, raves and other bacon bits in Endless Bacon.

in Bacon / Drinks / Endless Bacon / Pig 2 comments

by BS

Feed Us Back: Comments of the Week

– Sysco may claim that midwesterners don’t care about organic food, but Liza’s Sis begs to differ:

I live in Oklahoma, and find there are an abundance of local/organic options. Granted, I care enough to look… but it isn’t hard at all!…To be dismissed as “non-coastal” is total bullshit. I live in a place where I can eat plentifully from what is grown within 100 miles of me nearly yearround, and that’s true for a lot of us here in the middle. Frankly, before the Wal-Marts of the world starting taking over our small towns, I’m willing to bet that most people here were a lot better about eating locally and supporting farmers than the masses on the coasts.

Thems fighting words! Thanks, Liza’s Sis. PS – her novel-esque comment is totally worth reading in full.

– Elsewhere, forkitude threw down the gauntlet and asked for the worst food combinations you can possibly come up with. OMGYEAHYOUKNOWME got the ball rolling:

mush of pork scraps and trimmings combined with cornmeal and flour and blackpepper

Yum! Yuck? Yum? I’m so confused. Let’s keep it going, though!

– And how ’bout some crazy pizza combos, eh? Don’t leave an ES-er hanging!

(Photo: Mr. T in DC)

in Pig / Rants & Raves 3 comments

by BS

Getting Sauce-y in San Francisco

Earlier this year, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a resolution officially encouraging local restaurants to adopt the mantra of “Meatless Mondays,” the one-day-a-week-without-meat initiative pushed by such visionaries as Yoko Ono, Kim O’Donnel and gansie. But contrary to what you might think, not all SF chefs are hippie-dippie enviro crusaders who immediately rallied to the cause.

Ben Paula, the executive chef at Hayes Valley neighborhood spot Sauce and a proponent of putting bacon on everything was one who did respond quickly — by adding a Monday night prime rib special to his menu. After dining at Sauce, I can see why. We here at ES support eating local, lowering your meat intake and all the rest of it, but this is one restaurant where I might cry if I returned and they had dropped the pork.

We started with the app you see above, which Chef Ben humbly calls tater tots, but that’s a bit of an undersell. Creamy mashed potatoes are mixed with white truffle oil and cremini mushrooms, then breaded and fried crispy. A tasty snack even for a vegetarian, actually, but I dare anyone not to dip them in the smoked gouda and bacon fondue provided. Personally, I wanted to take a bath in it.

in Cheese / Fowl / Pig / Politics / Red Meat / Trends 4 comments

by BS

Top 10 New Foods at the 2010 State Fairs

With all due respect to George Washington Carver, America’s greatest food inventions have all originated in one place — the state fair. From cotton candy to corn dogs to deep-fried Coke, the enterprising folks at America’s state and county fairs top themselves year after year. Some observers thought state fair cooks had hit their peak last year, when the Texas State Fair debuted Deep Fried Butter. But in 2010, they outdid themselves once again, proving that if it’s edible, it’s even better battered and fried. From coast to coast (but mostly in the middle) here are our top ten favorite finds:

10. Hash Brown Hot Dog – San Diego County Fair

Hot dogs with french fries is a pretty fantastic lunch, but boy it takes a lot of effort to transport all those individual fries from the plate to your mouth. If only we could get the hot dog and the potato to be one cohesive unit, preferably arranged on a stick. Thank you, San Diego. Thank you. (Photo: It’s Holly)

9. Deep-Fried Cheddar-Bacon Mashed Potatoes…On a Stick – Minnesota State Fair

Sorry, San Diego — did you really think you could best the Midwest at spuds-on-a-stick? Here, Minnesota achieves the state fair trifecta — potatoes, pork and cheese — all deep fried, all on a stick. For more of Minnesota’s many, many state fair foods, check out Baking Junkie’s heart-stopping food crawl through the MN State Fair. (Photo: Baking Junkie)

8. Garbage Burger – Indiana State Fair

It’s the great state fair dilemma. Should pork be the basis of your dish — or a topping? In Indiana, this is not a problem. Behold the garbage burger — a deep-fried pork patty topped with a healthy serving of pulled pork. Why settle for one pig when you can have two? See more at The Hot Cookie. (Photo: Sarah Richcreek)

7. Deep-Fried Frito Pie – Texas State Fair

No other state takes this season as seriously as Texas, the good people who started the deep-fried everything movement with their corn dog in 1942 and haven’t looked back since. Earlier this week, ES told you about frito pies — those delicious piles of chili-topped corn chips. One guess what Texas has gone and done to ’em. (Photo: Texas Fried Frito Pie)

6. Deep Fried Klondike Bar – San Diego State Fair

California continues its surprisingly strong showing by having the cojones to throw a chocolate-covered ice cream bar in the deep fryer. This one’s more concept than execution, because not so surprisingly, it’s a total disaster to eat. My Burning Kitchen has more. (Photo: My Burning Kitchen)

Next: Top 5 New Foods at the 2010 State Fairs

in Cheese / Desserts / Featured / Food Travel / Lists / Pig 42 comments

by forkitude

Grease, Goats and Girth: The Iowa State Fair

After the two-hour drive to Des Moines, Iowa, my taste buds were ready for the greasy foods on a stick and ridiculous fair concoctions that only the Iowa State Fair could deliver. My goal was to attend the fair on an empty stomach so I could report back to you, dear ESer, about how the delicious fried things on a stick tasted. But I have a confession to make: I WAS NOT HUNGRY. After a sweet and greasy fried twinkie that got me all sticky, my body said “no way are you eating any more of this shit.” No, the wasp drowning in the sugary residue around a funnel cake was not appetizing. And last time I checked, hot beef sundaes would make any normal person want to vomit. About eight bottles of water and 500 pictures later, I was exhausted, smelly, tired and grossed out. I never did find those chicken lips on a stick. I feel somewhat cheated.

It was a twilight zone of meat: pork, steak, chicken, turkey, bacon, sausage, meatballs, 1/2 lb tenderloins, hamburgers. And it seemed that every other person I saw was a walking example of what happens if one eats state fair food as one’s daily diet. The people watching just got better and better and more alarming as we made our way around the fair. (Picture the humans in the movie Wall-E.) I couldn’t snap my camera fast enough. In speaking with one seemingly regular gentleman, he asked me what I was doing with the big camera. I told him that I was photographing state fair food. He asked me, “are you taking pictures of all the freaks?” Yes, yes, I was. I couldn’t keep my shutter shut.

We were also lucky enough to catch a few of the animals left in their pens, including a gigantic pig that looked like a hippopotamus, sheep, goats, turkeys, ducks and cows. The smell, oh the smell, can only be described as hot and pungent. And most likely, very soon, these animals would be on a stick somewhere. Gross.

Pop a few antacids before you browse the selection of photos:

in Bacon / Photos / Pig 4 comments

by Borracho

Carnita-Vore

Editors’ Note: Please welcome new blogger Borracho, who is joining the ES team to share stories of Hispanic cooking, foodie football fests, and more.

The wifey and I recently ventured out to a new local Mexican restaurant, and due to my almost maniacal obsession with all South of the Border cooking, I was delighted to see a simple carnitas plate on the menu. However, what came out, while very good, was not exactly what I was looking for. It is tough to find carnitas that are the same at any two places. The word carnitas just means “little meats,” so they can be made of beef or pork and can be fried, braised, put in a slow cooker, thrown on a Foreman grill…you get the picture.

By the time we left the restaurant, my mouth was already watering at the idea of coming up with my own version. For me, ideal carnitas are the crispy on the outside, moist on the inside nuggets of pork gold I had from a street vendor in Mexico. That version had been simmered for hours in a large amount of lard. While I believe lard does not get nearly enough respect, leaving a couple pounds of it simmering on the stove for 10 hours would just be cruel to our dog, Guinness, so in stead I decided to go with a mojo as the base liquid to cook my carnitas in.

in Pig / Recipe 3 comments