Makin’ Bacon Jam

 

Makin’ Bacon Jam,
A spreadable form of Ham,
It’s salty and it’s sweet,
It’s concentrated meat!
On a muffin or some toast,
You’re the ultimate brunch host!
Bacon in every bite,
Everything is going to be allllllright.

                                 -William Shakespeare.

Do you ever feel like the dog in this commercial?  IT’S BACON!!

That’s right, folks, we’re cooking with bacon.  As we’ve said a million times before, everything good starts with bacon.  In this case, bacon is the star of the show.  It may sound a little strange, but it’s a lot tasty:  Bacon Jam.  Before you scoff, take a look at this picture:

Who is scoffing now, you young scofflaw?

That’s homemade bread (overachieve much?) slathered in bacon jam and topped with a fried egg.  The whole reason we made bacon jam was so that we could make this for breakfast.  Yummy! 

The inspiration for this delightful concoction came from this food blog (which has fantastic pictures), and the recipe is an adaptation of a Martha Stewart recipe (she makes it in a slow cooker, which is probably how you have to cook things in the slammer).

So what is bacon jam?  It’s essentially bacon, onions, and garlic cooked down real slow until it’s basically nothing.  There’s also a bit of maple syrup, brown sugar, cider vinegar, and strong black coffee to make it sweet and tangy. 

The first step is rendering down a 3 pounds of bacon.  Good Lord I’ve never seen so much bacon in one pot! 

Cooking the bacon in bits like this is a lot easier than cooking whole pieces to perfection.

  

Cooking that much bacon renders a WHOLE lot of bacon grease.  You should strain it and keep it for future culinary goodness.

  

Then you brown a whole mess of onions, and scrape up all the brown bits the bacon left in the pot.

After they start to get translucent, you add in the coffee, syrup, vinegar and garlic.  Shortly after that, you re-add all the bacon back in and simmer…. and reduce… and simmer… and reduce.  For about 3 hours.  Its good to have a lot of TV saved on your DVR.

Remember how full that pot was with bacon and onions?  After 3 hours, this is all of that concentrated into this tiny amount.

Pulse to puree! 

Now, with the miracles of modern science, you can have bacon on every bite of your toast!