This past weekend I competed in a bacon cook-off fundraiser, entitled Baconpalooza, which was hosted by the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund. The contest was part of an entire weekend of events, which included a tour of Joel Salatin’s Polyface Farm and nutrition talks and cooking demos by Robb Wolf and Jenny McGruther. My competition was very stiff during the cook-off, with many imaginative and delicious entries trying to woo the sold-out crowd of 250 voters.
I’m happy to say that I was the winner of the cook-off! I thought it would be neat to share the recipe of my winning dish so you can recreate it at home.
recipe adapted from Ian Knauer
one piece uncut bacon (jowl bacon or belly bacon)
~ 3 cups apple cider
~ 1/4 cup bourbon (we used Maker’s Mark)
~ 20 peppercorns
~2 bay leaves
The ingredients in this dish are variable, and depend on the size of bacon piece you get. I would recommend something that’s at least a pound, and fairly thick. The bacon we used in the competition was graciously provided by US Wellness Meats and Red Apron Butchery, but any local butcher should be able to provide you with a nice chunk of uncut bacon.
Place the bacon in a dutch oven or roasting pan, then pour in enough apple cider to almost cover the bacon, then add a few splashes of bourbon. I used a ratio of around 1/10 bourbon, 9/10 apple cider – it’s not an exact science. Sprinkle in some peppercorns and add a couple bay leaves. Again, the amount varies.
Cover tightly (use a couple layers of tinfoil if you don’t have a heavy lid for your dish) then roast in the oven at 350 degrees for four hours. Take out the dish, uncover, and let cool in the liquid until it reaches room temperature, about an hour. Once it’s cool, put it in a ziploc bag and refrigerate overnight so that it’ll firm up. The bacon will keep for a month in the fridge.
When you want to eat it, slice it into thick slices, or into cubes like you see above, then sear for about a minute on each side on high heat. That’s basically it – the bacon will melt in your mouth at that point.
The bacon has such an intense flavor that I realized we needed to add accompaniments to complement and accent the strong flavor. For the cook-off we paired the bacon with a parsnip purée, beet chips, and some baby arugula tossed with Tessemae’s Lemonette dressing and fresh lemon juice. To make the parsnip purée, we just boiled some peeled and chopped parsnips until they were fork tender, about 40 minutes. Then we strained them and ran them through a food processor until smooth, and mashed in some grass-fed butter and salt to taste. We fried our beet chips in lard at 350 degrees, then lightly salted them while they drained on some paper towels.
The Team: my wife Janey, me, and our friend Giang
Overall, it was a really fun night, and I had a great time serving people and seeing their reactions when they tried the bacon. I also enjoyed the friendly ribbing between competitors; at the end of the day, it was great to see all the home chefs come out and show off their talents. Be sure to check out the list of other dishes that were presented – everything was really delicious!
** Note that this recipe calls for uncut bacon, and not pork belly. Your best bet for getting uncut bacon would be to go directly to a butcher. If you make this dish with pork belly, it’ll lack the flavor that comes from braising the cured/smoked bacon; adding about 1 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp liquid smoke will help it along, though.
Thanks to Molly M. Peterson for taking some of the pictures in this post!
The Domestic Man 
Start with bacon is it cured/cooked already or is it fresh pork belly
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Ted, you want to use bacon, not fresh belly/jowl.
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Is there a reason you couldn’t/wouldn’t use fresh belly?
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Jake, using fresh belly wouldn’t impart the smokiness that’s a big part of this dish’s taste. It also wouldn’t keep as long after cooking, since it’s unpreserved. It’d still taste pretty good. Maybe add some liquid smoke into the braising liquid.
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did you try it with fresh belly? how did it turn out?
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Oh my gosh, I need to make this ASAP! Bacon and bourbon are two of my favorite things, and I love the addition of apple cider!
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congrats on winning that cook off :) it does look like a winner! do you reserve the cooking liquid?
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Thanks Paul! I didn’t reserve the cooking liquid but that’s a good idea – although I’d expect it to be sickly sweet near the end of the braise.
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you could use it to make a gastrique and flavor a dipping sauce with it :) I think your cider reduction has to be delicious, great post btw
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You’re right, that actually might work out pretty well :)
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Congratulations! What an accolade! King of bacon!
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Thanks Pami! They were throwing around the title “Baron of Bacon” for a while but I think Russ is just fine :)
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I don’t know…Baron of Bacon has a nice ring to it.
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is there skin on that? Looks great
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Hi Cindy, that’s the top of the fat, not skin :)
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Arugula sounds like a great compliment to the bacon. I once had the pleasure of eating watermelon wrapped with bacon and it tasted surprisingly well. Just goes to show how versatile bacon really is! I love bacon! Thank you for sharing your recipe!
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Anything that combines bacon, bourbon, and cider deserves to win every award! Congratulations, and thank you so much for sharing!
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Brilliant Bacon! Congrats, and thanks for sharing. Looking forward to trying this out implementing the cubed idea.
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My mothers signature dish while growing up was smoked ham baked in a roaster with apple cider clove and cinnamon, the gravy she made from this was salty from the ham and sweet from the cider .. the harmony of sweet and savory it was AMBROSIA! She served it with mashed potatoes and to this day it remains my favorite dish. So i think the reduction idea or a even a gravy would be exquisite!!
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This looks awesome. Definitely want to try this!
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Reblogged this on Boteveg's Pub and commented:
Buffalo Trace Bourbon posted this link on Facebook. I am blogging it to share it and to make sure I will have access to it when I am ready to try making it. Also, since my blog is new, I have no idea how this Reblog menu choice at the top of the page works and I had to find out somehow. What better way than with bourbon and bacon?
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I made this recipe once with uncured pork belly and it was delicious. Now I’m finally trying it with bacon and I’m going to chop the resulting meat into small chunks to put it into a braised bacon and brussels sprout hash with crispy shallots and a poached egg. Thanks for the recipe and the inspiration!
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did you need to add salt when using an uncured belly?
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I definitely needed salt. I wasn’t sure how much I need, so I ended up adding a couple of shakes of kosher salt to the braising liquid and then some extra salt on the back end when cooking up the resulting sliced bacon.
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