Bourbon Bacon Jam

I'm still on break, so I've been doing some fairly ridiculous and/or hardcore things. Roller derby for one. I joined NH Roller Derby. I get drafted onto a team at the end of the month, which is super exciting! I've also taken the opportunity to spend more time with the Gentleman in Question.

Thursday, he presented me with a truly ridiculous idea: spreadable bacon. He'd eaten it over Thanksgiving at a friend's house, and even had a recipe. So obviously we had to try it. I've made a few traditional jams before (I'll tell you about the Strawberry Thyme Balsamic jam soon, and maybe the Blueberry Ginger Orange), but the concept of meat jam seemed odd to me. It was the bourbon that convinced me. Last night, we put it together, which was a nice distraction from the Saints loss. Then the Gentleman convinced me to watch The A-Team, cementing the ridiculous trend.

We used this recipe from Serious Eats, with a modification. The Gentleman is partial to shallots, so we substituted a bunch of them for one of the onions. I admit that we didn't really measure that, and eyeballed it instead. Otherwise, we followed the recipe exactly. I have to say, it's delicious. It's savory, and sweet. It'd be good with fried eggs.


Ingredients:

1 1/2 pounds bacon (nothing fancy, just ordinary bacon)
1 medium onion, diced
4-5 large shallots (equal approximately to the size of the onion), diced
3 medium cloves garlic, diced
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1/4 cup maple syrup (use grade B for a strong maple flavor)
6 tablespoons coffee
6 tablespoons bourbon
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar

Directions:


Chop the bacon into 1 inch pieces, and cook in a skillet until just crisp. You will probably need two skillets, or have to do this step in batches. Unless you have a giant cast iron skillet of doom, like the Gentleman.

Remove the bacon and drain it on a paper towel (which you've smartly layered on top of some tin foil to keep your counters from getting greasy). Pour off all but 1 tablespoon of the bacon fat. Sauté the onion, shallot, and garlic in the bacon fat until the onion is soft. 5-10ish minutes should do it.

Pour in the vinegar, syrup, coffee, bourbon, and sugar. Stir vigorously, and scrape up any bits that are stuck to the pan. Bring it to a boil (shouldn't take long), then boil it for 2 minutes. Add the bacon back in and give it a nice stir.

Move the whole mix to a crockpot, and cook on high uncovered for 3 1/2 to 4 hours. Ours only took 3 1/2. You can cook it less if you want a more jammy texture, or put the cover on.





Move the whole mix again to a food processor, or a blender, or a chintzy supermarket chopper, and pulse a few times until the mix is chopped into a paste. Put your bacon spread into clean canning jars and store in the fridge. We got about 16oz of spread.

And 8 oz of bacon grease.