Category: bacon

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bacon egg food ice cream milk

heston blumenthal’s egg and bacon ice cream

Heston Blumenthal was born in West London in 1966. His childhood fed many of his culinary fantasies he was to later draw upon and revisit: from fish and chips at Norman’s Plaice, to ice cream at the Regent Snack Bar. Breakfast and ice cream recur throughout his career, and the confluence of those is one I’m going to look at and cook today: egg and bacon ice cream.

This recipe, like so many of Heston’s, was born out of obsession and one of the first foods he investigated in depth at The Fat Duck restaurant. He wanted to find the perfect creamy mixture, with bold flavours, and yet not tasting too eggy. Not every ice cream recipe needs eggs but egg is an emulsifier that suspends butterfat particles and creates richer, creamier ice cream that stores really well. Searching for the perfect ice cream he began to experiment with all the variables, tweaking egg volume, freezing time, sugar content. After pushing received wisdom that custard bases should be cooked no higher than 85°c, his pastry chef Jocky Petrie commented that the overheated result “looked just like scrambled egg”. This eureka moment sent Heston off in a breakfast direction, remembering how much egg and bacon was a special treat growing up. After some refinement the dish first appeared on the menu at the Fat Duck restaurant in 2000.

The original plating in 2000

It might surprise you that this recipe uses milk powder. Heston has long favoured ice cream recipes with a low sugar content. Not for dietary reasons, but to create a denser texture and heightened flavours. Because of reduced fat and sugar, this recipe is high in egg yolks. The skimmed milk powder stops the ice cream from crystallising to create richness yet light and clean.

There are two published versions of the recipe: the uber-recipe from The Fat Duck Cookbook is an unsurprisingly complex and multi-layered affair, with tea jellies and tomato compotes. But there’s also the comparatively laid back version in Heston at Home, which is what I’ve emulated here: with the ice cream served with an egg-soaked bread and candied bacon. Much more approachable and likely more crowd pleasing.

The original recipe requires dry ice. I wasn’t willing to stretch to this – I can’t find it for under £37 – but instead used my ice cream maker for the final step. It may not be truly authentic but at least it’s Heston’s own endorsed model?

The result is a surprising and playful dessert that combines sweet, creamy ice cream with the savoury and smoky flavours of bacon. The Egg and Bacon Ice Cream reflects Blumenthal’s signature style of molecular gastronomy, where he combines unexpected ingredients and techniques to create unconventional but delicious dishes.

It is terrific. Really, super tasty. If you like dishes that combine sweet and salty flavours this is the one for you. The ice cream has a sweet but smoky flavour with a slightly ‘chunky’ texture and is a real winner. But the pain perdu / french toast / eggy bread is stunning. With a glass-like finish and sweet, chewy middle it’s sensational and worth having with other desserts.

Here’s a variation on the recipe served in egg shells.

And here’s Aldo’s version from BigFatUndertaking.

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egg and bacon ice cream

Heston Blumenthal's ice cream inspired dessert is french toast with a twist of sweet / savoury ice cream.
Course Dessert
Cuisine British
Keyword savoury, sweet
Servings 2 people
Calories 609kcal

Equipment

  • Ice cream machine

Ingredients

For the ice cream base:

  • 66 g sweet-cured smoked back bacon
  • 166 g full-cream milk
  • 5 g semi-skimmed milk powder
  • 4 large egg yolks
  • 20 g caster sugar

For the pain perdu:

  • clarified butter
  • 2 slices brioche stale (refrigerate overnight in a container to speed this up)
  • 100 g milk
  • 1 egg
  • 10 g golden caster sugar
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste

For the caramelised bacon:

  • 2 slices smoked bacon
  • 1 tablespoon maple syrup
  • ¼ teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon sugar

Instructions

For the ice cream base and caramelised bacon:

  • To start the ice-cream base, preheat the grill to high. Lay the bacon slices on a baking tray lined with baking paper and place under the grill for 5-7 minutes or until crisp.
  • At the same time mix the syrup, salt and sugar together and then brush on two more bacon slices and grill with the other bacon. When this is cooked refrigerate until needed.
  • When the initial bacon is cooked, drain on kitchen paper and cut it into strips. Place in a bowl, pour over the milk then refrigerate to infuse overnight.
  • The next day, put the milk and bacon into a saucepan and add the milk powder. Place over a medium-low heat and bring to a gentle simmer. Remove from the heat and strain off the bacon.
  • In the meantime, blitz the egg yolks and sugar together using a hand blender. Combine the egg mixture with the warm milk and return the pan to the heat. Warm the liquid until it just reaches 90ºC.
  • Once this temperature has been reached, remove the pan from the heat and pass the ice-cream base through a fine sieve into a clean container over iced water, pushing the custard through with the back of a spoon. Transfer to an ice cream machine and churn until done. Freeze until needed.

For the pain perdu:

  • Mix the egg, milk, vanilla and sugar together. Dunk the bread in to soak for 20 minutes. After this time remove the bread to a rack to drain for a couple of minutes.
  • Melt a tablespoon of clarified butter in a non-stick frying pan over a medium heat. Add the bread and fry on all sides, remove and place on paper towel to absorb any excess fat.
  • Wipe the pan out then place it over a medium-high heat. Add enough sugar to cover the bottom of the pan and allow to melt.
  • Once the sugar has completely melted and caramelised, add the bread and cover every side. Once coated on all sides, remove the bread from the pan, place on a silicone mat and allow to cool.
  • To serve, scoop the ice cream into a serving bowl (I used an egg cup). Place a slice of crystallised bacon on top and serve with pain perdu on the side.

Video

Notes

If you don't have an ice cream machine, you probably don't have dry ice either. This can be also made by placing into a freezer, and breaking up every 30 minutes but the results won't be a smooth.
Categories
asparagus bacon cheese cream egg food

improving the coronation quiche

For the first time in a very long time, Britain (and other countries for reasons I don’t want to get into in a recipe blog) have a new monarch. And as is customary, we will have a coronation ceremony in May 2023. And more importantly for most people, we get a bank holiday. A bank holiday so you can celebrate in your own way whether that’s hosting a street party, a garden BBQ, afternoon tea or throwing eggs at a rich person that you don’t like.

You know what the signature dish was for the 1953 coronation? It was called “poulet reine Elizabeth“, but everyone knows it as coronation chicken. It’s a creamy curry sauce that’s got an Indian vibe and you can either chuck it in a salad or slap it in a sandwich.

From Le Cordon Bleu cookery school

Apparently, the dish was the brainchild of food writer Constance Spry and chef Rosemary Hume from the fancy Cordon Bleu cookery school in London. They whipped it up for the queen’s coronation feast. It was inspired by a dish called jubilee chicken, which was created for George V’s silver jubilee back in 1935.

For Queen Elizabeth II’s golden jubilee in 2002, there was another jubilee chicken dish. This one was made by the chefs at Buckingham Palace and was a baked chicken cut into bits and smothered with a mix of creme fraiche, mayonnaise, lime and ginger. They served it up with pasta salad, lime slices, and flat leaf parsley, all packed up in a Waitrose plastic tub.

Now, for her platinum jubilee, they had a pudding competition and the winner was a lemon swiss roll and Amaretti trifle recipe. Nice, eh?

For King Charles’ coronation we have the coronation quiche. Perfect picnic fare, this quiche is flavoured with broad beans… and spinach?

Eh. It’s a bit dowdy, isn’t it? Doesn’t reek of celebration or festivities. Likely in the backdrop of cost-of-living crisis with rising energy bills and being squeezed, it was selected as being muted in tone to be a bit more down to earth. But I think we can do better than that, celebrating the best of British produce. While it’s nice to use broad beans it’s a bit… post-war rationing. Why not the undisputed king of British summertime, asparagus? Bang on season and something I wait for every year. And let’s add in some bacon, by the fact that everything is better with bacon. I also think we can do a little more with that pastry, so let’s amp that up. And finally let’s use some precision in the baking. None of this “20-25 minutes until golden”, let’s cook it until it’s actually perfect. With science!

Can you buy the coronation quiche?

I don’t think you can buy the coronation quiche in any shops. The only way to get the real deal is to use the official recipe, or you know, just be invited to the coronation.

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my coronation quiche

A celebratory quiche suitable for any gathering or garden party. One of the best things about a quiche is it really doesn't matter when you eat it: straight from the oven hot with a salad, or the next day packed up for lunch.
Course Main Course
Cuisine British
Keyword eggs, garden party
Prep Time 30 minutes
Cook Time 30 minutes
Servings 6 people

Ingredients

Pastry

  • 200 g plain flour
  • 50 g cold butter
  • 25 g lard
  • 25 g cheddar cheese
  • 1 egg
  • milk might need a splash

Filling

  • 300 ml double cream
  • 2 medium eggs save a tablespoon of it for later
  • 1 tablespoon fresh tarragon chopped
  • 100 g grated cheddar cheese
  • 100 g bacon diced
  • 150 g asparagus spears

Instructions

For the pastry:

  • I use a food processor for speed and to be honest, it's better: add the flour, butter, lard and cheese and pulse until it forms a sandy breadcrumb texture. Whizz in the egg and if needed pulse in the milk until it comes together - be sparing and stop the moment it comes together. If doing by hand, rub fats, cheese and flour together until it resembles breadcrumbs, then beat in the egg and milk as required to form a dough.
  • Wrap and allow to rest in the fridge while you get on with everything else.
  • Put a frying pan over a medium heat. Add the bacon to a dry pan and fry for 4-5 minutes. While this fries, snap off the woody end of the asparagus spears. Then finely slice the stalks but stop at the tips. Add all the asparagus pieces to the pan and continue to stir fry for another 3-5 minutes until softened. Remove to a plate to cool down.
  • Preheat the oven to 190°C.
  • Put the cheese, cream and tarragon in a jug, add salt and pepper and stir well to mix. Hold back about a tablespoon of the egg mix to one side for later.
  • Remove the dough from the fridge and roll out to the thickness of a British pound coin. Lay into a quiche dish (appropriately enough) or similar and prick the base all over with a fork to stifle it rising. Brush your reserved egg over the base to seal it. Pop in the oven for 20 minutes, where it should have gone a biscuity brown.
  • Take the pastry base out and reduce the oven temperature to 140°C.
  • Spread the bacon-asparagus mixture over the base, then pour over the liquid mixture. Place into the oven and bake for 20-25 minutes until the middle of the quiche gets to 85°C.

Video

Notes

You can stop cooking this when you're happy with how golden it is. By using a probe thermometer you can capture it when it's perfectly smooth and not scrambled-eggy.

Want more quiches? I took a lot from this fantastic cheese and onion tart I made years ago. Or take a look at Big Foodie Geek’s video.

Categories
bacon pie pork

home made pork pie

I’ve eaten pork pies hundreds of times but this was my first attempt at a home made pork pie. It’s really worth the effort.

If you are English and reading this you will already know what I mean by the phrase “pork pie”. It has a very definite meaning: a raised, crisp pastry, filled with coarse meat surrounded by a spiced jelly. It’s a picnic mainstay and a lock for any buffet table.

The pastry is specific. It is a hot water made with boiling lard, which crystallizes as it cools to give it a distinctive crunch. In centuries past the pastry was a container for the filling and was meant to be discarded, it is relatively recently that the pastry became edible.

As a further preserving agent, clarified butter was poured around the meat to keep it good. This has shifted over time to the divisive jelly. In my opinion the surrounding opaque jelly really makes it, but there are plenty of people who will tell you it’s revolting.

The popularity of the pork pie centres around the town of Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire, which has held PDO appellation since 2008. The booming dairy industry of the 1700s led to a surplus of whey, which became pig fodder. All this meat needs to be kept somewhere hence, the pork pie rose up around these farms.

I chose to make one large home made pork pie instead of smaller ones. You combine various pork meats…

Mix up your pastry and line a tin…

Fill with meat and bake. Later you pour in jelly from the top. It’s a little shambolic round the edges but it’s a lot of fun to make. I hadn’t made hot water pastry before and it spits with volcanic fury so be careful, but it is quite manageable.

Obviously it makes quite a large pie to go around, but you may as well. I enjoyed mine at my office the following day.

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home made pork pie

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

For the pastry:

  • 150 ml water
  • 150 ml milk
  • 175 g lard
  • 675 g plain flour
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 egg beaten

For the filling:

  • 700 g pork belly
  • 700 g pork shoulder
  • 6 rashers smoked streaky bacon
  • 2 onions diced
  • 1/2 nutmeg grated
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
  • 1/2 teaspoon dried sage
  • 1 teaspoon mustard

For the jelly:

  • 500 ml chicken stock
  • 250 ml apple juice
  • 2 sheets leaf gelatine snipped

Instructions

  • Fry the onions gently with the sage, thyme, nutmeg and mustard, then leave to cool.
  • Dice the porks and bacon together (I pulsed mine very gently in batches in a food processor). Combine with the onion mix and season generously with salt and pepper.
  • For the pastry bring the water, milk and lard to the boil in a saucepan. Sift in the flour and salt and beat with a wooden spoon to make a dough. Grease an 18cm springform baking tin and line with paper. When cool enough to handle roll the pastry to 5mm thick and use 3/4 of it to line your baking tin. Fill with the meat and then use the remaining pastry to make a lid. Use a fork to make a sealing pattern around the edge, then glaze with the egg. Poke a thumb-sized hole in the top with a knife to let the steam escape. Bake at 220C for 30 minutes, then turn down the oven to 190C for a further 1 hour. If it looks to be going brown a little prematurely cover with foil. You're looking for an internal temperature of 65C when probed.
  • While it cools, make the jelly stock. Soak the gelatine in cold water for twenty minutes. Bring the stock and juice combined to a simmer. Squeeze the gelatine of excess water and whisk into the stock until dissolved. Remember the hole you poked in the pie earlier? Force a funnel into it and trickle the stock into the pie. It'll take a little at a time as it seeps in, and keep topping it up until it cannae take no more. Leave in the fridge to set for at least 24 hours, and if you can wait a few more days it will taste even better. Serve with pickles and cheese.

Need more pies?

Try Elizabeth’s leftover roast beef pie. I love the sound of this one!

Categories
bacon broccoli cheese food gnocchi

gnocchi cheese bake with broccoli

Sometimes you get in from work, it’s just late, it’s dark, it’s raining. The urge to pick up the phone (or app, these days) and order some food in. But you know there’s just enough stuff in the cupboards that can be coerced into something that doesn’t scream leftovers. And that’s where this gnocchi cheese bake was born.

It has a macaroni cheese at it’s heart but with pillowy gnocchi instead for a toothy bite. The broccoli is there to assuage a little guilt and have something green poking out of it, though the irony taste does help damp down the richness.

The sauce is also a lightning-fast one, made with Greek yoghurt instead of a traditional roux. It’s not quite the same but it’s a helluva lot faster. Pure comfort food.

I’m entering this into Speedy Suppers hosted by Maison Cupcake and Feeding Boys; the theme this month is cheese so what could be more apt?

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gnocchi cheese bake with broccoli

Author Gary @ BigSpud

Ingredients

  • Gnocchi
  • 200 g frozen broccoli
  • 1 slice bread
  • 3 rashers smoked streaky bacon diced (optional)

For the cheese sauce:

  • 2 tablespoons cornflour level
  • 1 500 g Greek-style yoghurt
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
  • 50 g fresh parmesan grated
  • 50 g cheddar grated

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 200C.
  • Put a large pan of water on to boil. Put the gnocchi and broccoli in the water until al dente and drain.
  • While the gnoc 'n' broc cooks, measure the cornflour into a bowl. Blend in a little yoghurt, stir in the eggs and whisk until smooth. Mix in the remaining yoghurt, cheeses and the mustard.
  • Get an oven-safe dish over a low heat. If you're using the bacon, fry it quickly until crispy. Whizz up half the bacon and bread in a food processor and keep to one side for a moment.
  • Add the gnocchi, broccoli and the other half of the bacon to the cheese sauce, adding a little milk if required to let it down. Top with the bacony breadcrumbs and bake for 20 mins, or until puffy and golden.

Need more cheesy dinners? Try the Jackie Kashian creamy penne. Or Heston’s macaroni cheese!

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