Charlie whips up something that sounds wrong, but tastes right. Especially after a few miles on the bike. Bloody Brilliant Bacon Jam.
Words Charlie Photography Amanda
Imagine a world where you can take not two, or three, but four great things, and orgy them together to make one mega turbo awesome thing. Well, that world is real, and that world is the Singletrack office kitchen.
In my bacon jam recipe I picked ingredients from four of the major food groups: jammy, meaty, boozy and stimulant’y… and created the new power food. Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to present to you bacon, coffee, sugars and whisky as Bacon Jam. Use this in the same way you would use chutney. It is great with cold roast chicken leftovers, and with cheeses. However, one of the best uses is in a bacon sandwich. I promise you that bacon with bacon jam is the stuff of indulgent food nirvana. Each small TARDIS-like jar contains a day’s worth of coffee, a variety of sugars, an onion and more than a whole packet of bacon. Brace yourself for this is foodie dark matter.
Ingredients
- 500g of quality smoked dry cure bacon cut into 2mm wide strips.
- 2 medium onions very finely sliced.
- A few cloves of chopped garlic.
- 150ml of Singletrack Deadline espresso, or another damned strong quality coffee.
- 2 tbsp of Chipps’ Knob Creek Bourbon from the secret office stash of many boozes that I have been entrusted with, and that no one else at Singletrack knows about… until they read this.
- 2 tbsp of real maple syrup, not maple ‘flavoured’ syrup. That stuff is utter BS.
- 2 tbsp of balsamic vinegar.
- 85g of light brown sugar.
- You will also need two medium, sterilised jam jars and a non-stick saucepan.
Method
- Fry your bacon until crispy. Then remove from the pan with a slotted spoon leaving the oil.
- Tip: If your bacon gets overwhelmed with that watery white snot that wetter bacons suffer from, tip it into a colander to drain it, clean the pan, add some fresh oil and fry again. If at first you don’t succeed, fry, fry again.
- Turn the heat down low and gently fry the onions until they start to turn brown.
- Add everything else: bacon, coffee, whiskey, sugar, balsamic vinegar and maple syrup.
- Stir it up, and gently simmer for around 30 minutes.
- Squish it around with a potato masher to break it up a little.
- It’s ready when you have a good wet sludge. Aim for a consistency similar to a well-used woodland path in December.
- Allow it to cool before transferring into jam jars. You should keep it in your fridge, where it will be happy for up to a month.
Experiments, deviants and misuses
Vegans can knock out the bacon and max out the onions with red onions, shallots and artisan hipster onions suspended on homemade twine from the Victorian airer that makes for simply amazing Instagram pictures. Now, what would happen if you put this on a tray and baked it? Bloody hell… have I just invented bacon toffee?
