Bacon Challenge #1 - Grilled Scallops with Bacon

halmakeup Eylül 14, 2022

Remembrant readers will recall about six weeks ago when Moulard presented a bacon challenge. He most generously offered to provide some of his home made bacon for anyone who was prepared to blog about it.

I gladly waved my hand in the air to take part in this bold challenge.

A few weeks later, I got an email about the spicing.

"I toyed around with doing something Mexican inspired, but then I thought it might limit the things you could do with it if it was poblano infused bacon, or ancho or something on that vein. I also thought about doing a Chinese inspired bacon, after, or in homage to red pork - but again, rejected it for the same reason.

"In the end, it has ended up very similar to the one that I prepared for Tim: juniper, allspice, bay, black pepper, mustard, and a bit of fennel seed.

"Expect it in about two weeks."

I hopped in excitement. And so in about two weeks a wax paper-wrapped bundle of flavour arrived on our doorstep. Moulard had dry cured it for ten days in the spice mixture and then hot smoked the pork belly over applewood.

Obviously this is not the insipid watery lean pieces of round or even middle bacon you find sloshing around under plastic at the supermarket. This is pork belly, lined with seams of porkalicious fat between soft supple muscle. Just smelling it is a joy - the applewood smoke hits you first with a slight sweetness, and then the complexity of the cure; the pepper, the allspice, and that sharp tang of juniper just making its presence felt.

The outside has a rich sheen from the smoking. The spicing infuses the outer layers, and the inner layers have a delicate shading from the outside to the inside from the smoke penetration, palest at the bottom of the photo below (as the belly is pretty impervious).

So what to do? I want use it for three or four dishes assuming I can stretch the bacon that far. Here's the first.

I bought some lovely big scallops from the Vic Market. You want big ones - there's no point trying to wrap bacon around the tiny little bay scallops you get here. Sometimes you can get Canadian or American scallops frozen; they are huge and lovely. Yesterday I got West Australian scallops, about 3-4 cm across and 1.5 cm high. No roe; it would clash with the other flavours.

I cut the thinnest strips I could from the bacon, about 1 or 1.5 mm I think. Trimmed them to nice rectangles as high as the scallops (and reserved the trimmings. I'll use them soon!), then wrapped them around the scallops and secured with a toothpick.

So, bacon and scallops, nothing too original there. What kind of sauce would go with that? I pondered for a while. I wanted something that would accentuate the applewood flavour. Apples? And something that would add some acid to go with the scallops, and to balance the fattiness of the bacon and the richness of the scallops. Green apples! And something to provide a savoury base so it's not just apple puree .... leek!

So there you go. Take the nice bits of 1 small leek, roughly chop them (after washing carefully of course) and saute in a little butter in a small pan until softened. Add a little dry white vermouth, maybe 50ml, for extra aromatic flavour, and bring to the boil. Put in one roughly chopped green apple (no core, but I left the skin on) and a couple of tablespoons of lemon juice. Lower the heat and cook until the apple is just soft to an inquisitive fork. Don't go too long as you will lose the sharpness of the apple and the sugars in it will start to caramelise, and then you are left with slightly savoury applesauce. Then hit it with a stick blender or in a food processor until it is a smooth puree. Thin with a little water if you think it's too thick and heavy. That will make enough sauce for 4-6 people at three scallops each.

Finally, cook the scallops in a medium hot pan with a little butter. At the size I had, two minutes on each flat side and then laying them on their round sides for maybe 15-20 seconds then turning, turning (working around the toothpicks) until the bacon was golden brown and delicious on all sides. The smell of the bacon in the pan was rich, spicy and aromatic to the point that I can't do justice to the description. The Perigueuxse's face was positively alight with excitement.

Then, sauce on plate, scallops on sauce and munch. The flavours came out pretty much how I wanted - acid, fruit and aromatics from the sauce, spicy smoky richness from the proteins. We cleaned our plates, licked our forks (and maybe our knives) and I snuck over to the pan so I could scrape the fond off the bottom and eat that. Don't tell the Perigueuxse - I think she didn't notice.