Maple Bacon Dressing +

Life is hard; food doesn't have to be #109 [vol5, 10.4]

Photo by Janosch Diggelmann on Unsplash

Maybe one of the most popular items at last night’s church supper was the salad dressing. Actually the soup was a huge hit too.

One gentleman told me he would pay top dollar if I made him two gallons! Unbeknownst to him, his wife asked minutes previously for the recipe. Kathy, this post is for you.

Maybe you know this about me — and maybe you are similar — when I make a salad dressing, I gather ingredients then add them in various amounts until I get the flavor I’m searching for.

I’m sorry (not really) that I don’t have an exact recipe for you.

Ingredients

• shallot or mild onion

• mild vinegar like white wine, rice or others with water

• dijon or whole grain mustard - really any works; use what you have

• real maple syrup

• sea salt (fav is BajaGold)

• extra virgin olive oil

• warm bacon grease

Amounts

I made about 1.5 quarts (!) so telling the exact amounts might not be helpful. I used ABOUT 1:1:2 of vinegar, maple syrup and fat. The mustard helps emulsify the fat with water soluble ingredients. Please don’t skimp on salt. Even though bacon grease is salty you need a good amount of salt for this to taste good and probably much more salt than you think necessary. At least I was shocked how much salt it needed, and I’m liberal with salt on the reg.

Method

I made in a jar with an immersion blender. It could also be made in a regular blender.

Finely dice a shallot or a couple tablespoons of an onion. Sprinkle it with salt then pour over vinegar. Let this sit about 5 minutes. Conversely, toss everything in the blender and forget about dicing.

Add a generous dollop of mustard. Then equal volume of maple syrup. Another generous pinch of salt (maybe as much as 1t for 1/2c vinegar + 1/2c syrup).

Blend. Taste. Just for a starting point.

While the blender is running, slowly pour some olive oil into the mixture. I probably used 1:4 EVOO to bacon grease — simply because I wasn’t sure I would have enough bacon grease. You could definitely use all bacon grease. The more bacon grease the more pronounced flavor…and flavor is what we’re after!

Keep tasting. Likely you will want to add more salt.

Next, drizzle warm bacon grease with the blender running.

Stop frequently and taste.

Keep Tasting & Trusting

Some thoughts as I tasted:

• oh this is too sour. Needs more sweet.

• needs more salt

• needs more bacon flavor

• it needs something and I don’t know what… I will add salt. Yup, needed salt.

No Shortcuts to Learning

If you want to be come a better home cook, there are no shortcuts. YOU HAVE TO PRACTICE. Taste your food as you make it.

Be ok with failure.

It’s only failure if you don’t learn from the mistakes.

Serving

The dressing seemed emulsified when I set it on the salad table. However after about an hour (longer?) it appeared curdled. Thankfully a volunteer stood nearby and encouraged onlookers, “This dressing doesn’t look like much, please try some. IT IS SO GOOD.”

I think what happened was the bacon grease cooled and began to congeal. Eww. If serving at home, it would be easy to warm again. Or likely it wouldn’t be out long enough to cool.

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Other things served at church last night:

• Good soup starts with amazing broth. Here’s how.

• Creamy Golden Chicken Soup (6 gallons!)

• (Bacon) Cheeseburger Soup (4 gallons, will make more next time)

• Chicken Noodle (4 gallons)

• Ranch Dressing (that post has a ton of linked soup recipes)

Note: 83 signed up, 110 went through the line plus about 10-20 volunteers eat free. Four people bought to-go portions. Nothing was leftover! (I was hoping to bring some home so I wouldn’t have to cook today…)

We also served sourdough whole wheat focaccia. I’m new at sourdough and was nervous about making so much and serving it. But the practice and question asking paid off! Yesterday was the best batch(es) yet! I used about 11 pounds of freshly milled hard red wheat and 11 pounds of all purpose flour. If you’re a sourdough maker interested in the focaccia recipe or process I used leave a comment or reply to this email.

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Please try making this dressing. Would be super yum on a Cobb salad.

Life is hard; food doesn’t have to be.

Julie

PS - Does it cost more to eat real food? If you’re struggling with this idea, read this excellent article.