Bacon is an all time favorite comfort go to food. The varieties of bacon keep growing; apple-wood bacon, cob smoked bacon, hickory bacon, etcetera. Then there is Canadian bacon, Irish bacon, pancetta (Italian bacon), turkey bacon and even soy bacon. No wonder millions of people love this food it is in virtually every cuisine and on every menu you pick up every day.
Spicy foods are another love of adventurous eaters. Hot and spicy foods are stimulants, and are said to set off the saliva and gastric juices and get your blood circulating. Once again in many cuisines like Cajun, Indian, Caribbean and Italian you find some type of pepper to stimulate your taste and make you love to take another bite of scoville enhanced decadence.
When cooking bacon you can actually add seasonings, sauces or glazes to help compliment your recipes. Here some bottled tabasco or pepper sauce is added to give the bacon some added punch. Start with the bacon laid out in a cold pan. Do not cook it at any heat higher than medium. Flip halfway through the cooking process, then maybe one more time at the end for extra crispness. Starting the bacon in a cool pan will help it from curling up. Drain on paper towels or plain brown paper bags and reserve rendered fat in fridge for other recipes. If pan frying the bacon you need to turn it often and gradually dump out the rendered fat.
Add the pepper sauce to the bacon at the end of the cooking process, after most of the grease comes out, so the flavor doesn't get washed away. For some recipes you want the bacon more crispy for others less, so try and find a happy medium towards the end of your desired texture and at that point let the hot sauce get in there and do it's magic.
Jalapeno Bacon Wrapped Seafood with mango drizzle
Use jumbo sea scallops or shrimp, at least 2 per person for an appetizer
- 8 slices bacon
- 8 large sea scallops or shrimp
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 1 ripe mango
- 1 tablespoon jalapeno or chipotle pepper tabasco sauce
- 1 teaspoon honey
- 1 teaspoon rice wine, apple cider or white vinegar
- Salt and Freshly ground black pepper (as needed)
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray
- Cook bacon slices on the cookie sheet when most of the fat is rendered, baste with tabasco sauce. (dont let the bacon get to crispy, you still need to wrap it around the shrimp or scallops)
- Wrap the shrimp or scallops with the bacon and place in the oven with some of the bacon grease and tabasco drippings. Cook 5-8 minutes or until fully cooked
- While seafood is cooking, rough chop the mango and place in the blender with the vinegar and honey, add a few drops of tabasco and puree thoroughly.
- Remove the bacon wrapped seafood from the oven and serve on a platter with a drizzle of the mango sauce or in a cup on the side for dipping.
- 8-12 pieces bacon
- 2 tablespoons jalapeno or chipotle flavored tabasco
- 8 eggs
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1 cup salsa
- 1 cup shredded cheddar or jack cheese
- 8 10--12" flour tortillas
- salt and pepper to taste
- cook bacon in a frying pan or on cookie sheet until crispy and douse with tabasco sauce
- whisk together eggs with milk salt and pepper and scramble in another frying pan. (or in the render tabasco flavored bacon fat)
- warm tortillas, divide eggs among the tortillas, then some salsa, cheese and finally the bacon.
- roll the tortillas and they can be reserved or warmed further at this point
- Serve with salsa for dipping.
Chris Albano - My Name is Chris Albano and I have been a working chef for over 20 years. I was born in Springfield Massachusetts, a city 90 miles west of ...
