I didn’t read the whole thread, so apologies if someone already mentioned this. At a recent dinner at the Reata restaurant in Alpine, Texas, I had bacon-wrapped jalapenos stuffed with crab. They were a garnish (!) on some chiles rellenos. You really couldn’t taste the crab, but the jalapenos and bacon were great.
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Those sound incredible!!
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Back to the bacon subject…I make bacon mayo once in awhile to be used in a tomato sandwich.
I have also woven bacon into a square and oven fried it to use as a sandwich ‘meat’ or casserole topping.
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Bacon wrapped turkey was very trendy in the past. You could also do a chicken or a meatloaf, but I haven’t tried any of them
https://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-a-bacon-wrapped-turkey-237557
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Did somebody already mention rumaki recipes?
Bacon wrapped prawns that were stuffed with gorgonzola?
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Every Christmas gathering on my mom’s side of the family included platters of bacon wrapped chicken livers. Good times!
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No, but excuse me I used the wrong word in a rush to get out the door.
With Kenji’s method I take off the diffuser element, not the “grate” above the burner. Brain fart, if you will. With the diffuser off I get a flame that blows itself out (with no pan on it, at about 70% of gas pressure) at about 16 inches.
With a pan on it, it’s blowing a lot like what you see in commercial kitchens, just somewhat less. But great if you tip the pan and invite in the flames to hit the vaporized sesame/other oils.
I also wrap cheddar or gorgonzola stuffed medjool dates in bacon, and bake until the bacon is crispy
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Oooh! Now I remember. We went on a walking-tasting tour of Boston about 10 years ago, and these were one of the 10 apps we tried along the way. I think they also had some kind of fig jam with the stuffing, but they were lovely.
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My holy grail meatloaf recipe uses bacon ground up in a food processor, then mixed in with the meat. I LOVE making meatloaf and then freezing it in smaller portions for later. I’ve also made the raw mix, packed it into tinfoil loaf pans, and frozen that to bake later.
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Sorry boys, time to close this dialogue.
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Reading comprehension here, for some, seems to be low or very low….or set to troll.
Like I said, I’ll take an old pro with knowledge and skill over an amateur with every possible gadget or equipment.
Don’t get me wrong, good equipment is great and helpful, but knowledge, skill and wisdom beats fancy equipment almost always.
About wok hei. I understand what it is…and you can get it at home with basic equipment. 1) put the wok or pan in the oven before using it and get it HOT AF. 2) use a butane torch at the edges of the wok and kiss some of the food. See that’s KNOWLEDGE, not equipment. I can do that on a regular electric Samsung stove……or $100k range…but it’s the KNOWLEDGE, not the gear.
Again, I’ll take Jacques Pipin at 90 y.o. with a regular American kitchen over an average joe or jane with a $10 mil custom kitchen and $$$ coming out of their butt. You name the dish, fried rice, pasta, eggs. People have cooking great food for millennia with zero fancy equipment.
I had an uncle (a surgeon no less) who had a custom commercial grade wok in his kitchen since the 80s. He was a good cook but my mom with a cast iron pan did better…because her family owned a Chinese take out and she she had the knowledge.
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Oh, my. I gotta try. (And I have PLENTY still of bacon to try it!)
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Yeah, but… it’s kinda fun to watch the evolutions…
(As a participant, I mean. I acknowledge that it’s not fun to see as a bystander, so your point is well taken, and I thank you for it. I’ll stop. Thanks!)
For the original topic, I fry up about a pound of bacon in the oven, let it cool, then put it in a ziploc in the fridge for late night snack raids.
As for the fried rice digressions, I’ll only say that I grew up eating chow fan. That’s how my mom used up leftover rice, and she probably made it at least once a week, usually using bacon, but not always. I make it the same way she did, and it tastes the same. I have only had chow fan in a restaurant a couple of times that I like better than mine/my mom’s, and those were fancy-style. Is mine/my mom’s better? I dunno. I like it better, that’s all I can say. Nearly every restaurant chow fan I have had was boring. And I am loathe to order it in a restaurant. We’re Chinese: we eat bok fan with our meals.
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Thank you for finally elaborating on the wok hei.
I’ll have to see if my wok (wooden handle) can…. handle 
high temps in the oven.
No torch, unfortunately.
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Experience is obviously important in every profession but the right tool in the right situation can close the gap between professional and amateur quite significantly, In the case of fried rice if we have a professional chef/Pepin in a home kitchen with electric stove or an amateur cook with perhaps 1-2 years experience in using a tool like a Big Kahuna wok set up I think the amateur can make better tasting fried rice with wok hei. (Similar also for example with making steaks in conventional kitchen (pro) vs sous vide set up with bbq grill (amateur))
In the culinary world experience, in my opinion, plays less a role to make single dishes very good (amateur cooks can make restaurant quality-level dishes, especially with the right tools) but to make 100s of plates every night on a consistently high level
Our convo here made me want to re-test my idea since I hadn’t done in it in awhile. So for last night’s dinner, I cut the end from a package of bacon to make the lardon bits. I opened the package straight out of the freezer. Immediately cut the amount I wanted with my chef’s knife. Sharp knife, sturdy cutting board for safety’s sake as always. Bacon went back in the freezer right away.
Then I returned to the cutting board to cut the bacon into the size I wanted. I think it’s actually easier to cut into the bacon while still frozen because the fatty meat doesn’t slip on the board as you cut it. The bacon bits defrosted quickly while I did the rest of my dinner prep.
Sautéed and in the finished dish, sea scallop succotash with a bacon garnish.
Hope this gives you a better idea of what I was trying to explain.
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