The subject
Peeling an orange in January can shock you out of your winter doldrums like no other food can. The first breach of the zest instantly sends the vibrant scent of citrus up and into your brain, and it's hard not to forget--if only for a moment--the cold, dreary world that lies outside your kitchen. Blood oranges taste nearly identical, but the vibrant color of the center only adds to the kick. Even serial killers like Dexter enjoy citrus fruit, as witnessed in the opening credits of his Showtime drama (the most strikingly gorgeous minute on television, in our opinion). We decided to wrap a single segment of sunshine in bacon and see what transpired.
The results
Many foods intensify in sweetness when heated up. In this case, the sugar level of the orange gave way to tartness, providing an interesting counternote to the savory bacon wrapped around it. The juice didn't leach out, but bacony goodness snuck into the fruit, making us think that if some enterprising farmer figured how he could cross an orange with a pig (kind of like Homer Simpson crossed a beefsteak 'mater with tobacco to come up with the Tomacco), he'd be a wealthy man, indeed.
The conclusion: Bacon + blood orange = killer flavor
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Friday, January 8, 2010
Test #196: Bacon and MUSHROOM
The subject
For not being meat, mushrooms are pretty danged tasty. And versatile, too--you can fry them, marinate them, toss them on top of everything from salads to pizzass...and if you're a Smurf, you can live in them. Faced with an overabundance of porcini mushrooms (our favorite--no offense, portabellos), we wrapped one up in bacon and baked that mofo up.
The results
Awesome--the mushroom morphed into a moist, bacon-flavored morsel, and its smooth texture perfectly complemented the bacon's crispy crunchiness. Definitely worth repeating--in fact, we can see ourselves stuffing mushroom caps with stuff like crabmeat or cheese before wrapping for an extra-tasty treat.
The conclusion: Bacon + mushroom = Smurfalicious
For not being meat, mushrooms are pretty danged tasty. And versatile, too--you can fry them, marinate them, toss them on top of everything from salads to pizzass...and if you're a Smurf, you can live in them. Faced with an overabundance of porcini mushrooms (our favorite--no offense, portabellos), we wrapped one up in bacon and baked that mofo up.
The results
Awesome--the mushroom morphed into a moist, bacon-flavored morsel, and its smooth texture perfectly complemented the bacon's crispy crunchiness. Definitely worth repeating--in fact, we can see ourselves stuffing mushroom caps with stuff like crabmeat or cheese before wrapping for an extra-tasty treat.
The conclusion: Bacon + mushroom = Smurfalicious
What do you do with a drunken senior?
Not this--it's horrible. I mean, LOOK at all that wasted bacon!
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Test #195: Bacon and CHOCOLATE-COVERED SUNFLOWER SEEDS
As Carl Weaver of the National Confectioners Association so astutely points out in his blog, people love mixing chocolate with savory. The concept isn't so new--how many years have we been enjoying chocolate-covered pretzels, potato chips, and other snack items? What's different is the variety that's popping up. The pinnacle of this trend is, of course, chocolate-covered bacon, but we do love the increase in the number of companies offering chocolate-covered sunflower seeds. Tasty, yes, but you can almost convince yourself that you're munching on something healthy. Almost.We took some of the chocolate-covered sunflower seeds we bought off the Christmas clearance rack at World Market (75% off--woo-hoo!) and wrapped them in savory bacon. How did it turn out?
The results
...pretty darned good, it turns out. The artificially dyed candy coating kind of went liquid and oozed out the size, but we didn't need it anyway. What remained--salty bacon, sweet chocolate, and crunchy seeds. Not just a fabulous flavor combination, but a nifty texture mixture to boot. Worth repeating, except we might be inclined to break it down and just do plain seeds, chocolate chips, and bacon.
The conclusion: Bacon + chocolate-covered sunflower seeds = a bright idea
Sunday, January 3, 2010
Test #194: Bacon and COMBOS
The subject
About a year ago, convenience-store shelves in some random parts of the country were graced for a brief time with Bacon, Egg & Cheese combos. Not everywhere--and not in the Chicago area, otherwise the staff of BDJ Labs would have snapped up a few cases. Bloggers across the country marveled at the snack oddity, theorizing that they must be some super-secret trial flavor, because the Combos people didn't even list the flavor on their Web site. Sadly, the super-secret trial must be over, because the BC&E Combos bags disappeared from those spare few stores almost as quickly as they'd popped up. Oh, well--there's still the pretzel/cheddar, cracker/cheddar, cracker/pizza, and (our personal favorite) salsa/tortilla. They're tasty--although, for some reason, we seem to only eat them on road trips. This one time, we took a bag out of the BDJmobile and into the lab for bacon-wrapping.
The results
Pretty darned good. We've wrapped plain pretzels in bacon before and dug the way the snacks retain their crunch while still managing to take on some awesome bacony flavor (and grease). Same here, only with the added bonus of a cheesy core. We only wish the cheese would have been melty-gooey, like the real thing, and not the dry, powdery fakish stuff at the center of Combos. Ah, well. Can't always have everything.
The conclusion: Bacon + Combos = not too shabby
About a year ago, convenience-store shelves in some random parts of the country were graced for a brief time with Bacon, Egg & Cheese combos. Not everywhere--and not in the Chicago area, otherwise the staff of BDJ Labs would have snapped up a few cases. Bloggers across the country marveled at the snack oddity, theorizing that they must be some super-secret trial flavor, because the Combos people didn't even list the flavor on their Web site. Sadly, the super-secret trial must be over, because the BC&E Combos bags disappeared from those spare few stores almost as quickly as they'd popped up. Oh, well--there's still the pretzel/cheddar, cracker/cheddar, cracker/pizza, and (our personal favorite) salsa/tortilla. They're tasty--although, for some reason, we seem to only eat them on road trips. This one time, we took a bag out of the BDJmobile and into the lab for bacon-wrapping.
The results
Pretty darned good. We've wrapped plain pretzels in bacon before and dug the way the snacks retain their crunch while still managing to take on some awesome bacony flavor (and grease). Same here, only with the added bonus of a cheesy core. We only wish the cheese would have been melty-gooey, like the real thing, and not the dry, powdery fakish stuff at the center of Combos. Ah, well. Can't always have everything.
The conclusion: Bacon + Combos = not too shabby
Saturday, January 2, 2010
YAAAAAAAAY! Bacon winners!
We've picked the lucky winners in the end-of-2009 Bacon Bonanza (or whatever we named the contest) from our Twitter and blog friends and followers. Sometime soon, these lucky individuals will be sinking their teeth into rashers of Oscar Mayer Super Thick Applewood Smoked bacon. Here they are, so you direct your seething jealousy at them...Twitter followers:
@gingerkiller
@kanudig_it
@lamesauce22
@gottabebacon
@loveandbacon
BDJ blog followers:
Seida Bacon
Amy Vernon
Chris Pullman
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