Bacon Nation: 125 Irresistible Recipes (8 page)

Serves 8 as a side dish

In the vegetable world, we think of butternut squash as a solid citizen: a food that serves as the dependable backbone of a recipe but becomes much more interesting when combined with deeply flavored ingredients. This savory tart is a quintessentially autumn dish. The last tomatoes of summer, the ripe squash of autumn, the heartiness of bacon, and the crispness of a flaky, free-form pie crust make for a fine lunch or supper on an October weekend—whether it’s an Indian summer evening or a crisp afternoon when the fallen leaves want to be raked into piles that young children can’t resist diving into. Here we provide two different, equally delicious ways to roll out and fold the pastry around the savory filling.

For the pastry crust dough

1¼ cups unbleached all-purpose flour, plus flour for rolling out the crust

8 tablespoons (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch pieces

1 tablespoon chopped fresh tarragon

¼ teaspoon salt

3 to 4 tablespoons ice-cold water

For the galette

5 slices thick-cut applewood-smoked bacon, cut into ½-inch dice

Olive oil, if necessary

1¾ pounds butternut squash, peeled, seeded, and cut into pieces 2-by-½–inch-thick inches long (4 to 4½ cups)

¼ teaspoon salt

Freshly ground black pepper

2 large leeks, white and pale green parts only, cut in half, well rinsed, and thinly sliced crosswise (about 1½ cups)

8 cherry tomatoes, cut in quarters

1 medium-size clove garlic, minced

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1
Make the pastry crust dough: Combine the flour, butter, tarragon, and ¼ teaspoon of salt in a food processor and pulse until the mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Drizzle 3 tablespoons of the cold water evenly over the mixture and pulse until the dough holds together. If necessary, add more water, 1 teaspoon at a time, and pulse a few more times, just until the dough holds together. Remove the dough from the food processor and gently press it into a 5-inch disk. Wrap the disk of dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for at least 1 hour or as long as overnight.

2
Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 450˚F.

3
While the dough chills, make the filling for the galette: Cook the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat until browned but not too crisp and most of the fat is rendered, 5 to 7 minutes, stirring often and adjusting the heat as necessary. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate to drain, reserving the bacon fat in the skillet. You should have about 2½ tablespoons of fat. If necessary, pour off enough fat or add enough olive oil to the skillet to measure 2½ tablespoons.

4
Place the squash on a large rimmed baking sheet. Drizzle 1 tablespoon of the bacon fat from the skillet over the squash. Sprinkle the ¼ teaspoon of salt over the squash and season it with pepper to taste, tossing the squash to coat it with the bacon fat. Spread the squash out in a single layer on the baking sheet and bake it until golden brown around the edges, 16 to 18 minutes, turning the pieces once after about 8 minutes. Remove the squash from the oven and reduce the oven temperature to 375˚F.

5
Heat the remaining bacon fat in the skillet over medium heat. Add the leeks and cook, partially covered, stirring occasionally, until the leeks have softened and are lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes and garlic and cook, partially covered, until the tomatoes and garlic have softened slightly, about 1 minute.

6
To assemble the galette, lightly flour a work surface. Using a lightly floured rolling pin, roll the pastry crust dough out into a very thin 12- to 13-inch round. Transfer the dough to a large ungreased nonstick baking sheet. Arrange the squash in an even layer in the center of the round of dough, leaving about a 1 to 1½-inch border of dough bare (see Note). Distribute the leek and tomato mixture evenly over the squash. Sprinkle the drained bacon evenly over the vegetables. Fold the border of dough toward the center of the galette so that the dough covers the outer rim of the filling. If the filling looks a little dry, drizzle the top with a little olive oil. Pleat and pinch the border of dough as necessary where the edges overlap. Brush the dough with the beaten egg (you don’t need to use it all) and bake the galette until the crust is cooked through and golden at the edges, 30 to 35 minutes.

7
Place the baking sheet with the galette on a wire rack and let it cool for 10 minutes before slicing and serving.

Not All Bacons Are Created Equal

 

While all bacon has fat, not all bacon has the same amount of fat. A lot depends on the hog it came from: How old it was. How much it weighed. Whether it was free-range. What breed it was. Some bacon can be quite lean, and some can be exceptionally fatty. For that reason, when we recommend a certain number of slices of bacon, you should take that with—ahem—a grain of salt. Niman Ranch bacon, which we love, can sometimes be a little fatty. Oscar Mayer bacon, on the other hand, can be lean by comparison. You might want to trim some fat from the Niman Ranch bacon. Allan Benton’s amazing bacon is like solidified smoke, so use it sparingly when cooking delicately flavored ingredients. If you like an extra-bacony taste, you could add another slice of bacon to any recipe. Use our recipes as a guideline, but let your own taste be the final judge of how much bacon you use. You’ll find a guide to bacon producers starting on
page 289
.

Summer Vegetable and Bacon Soup with Tomato-Basil Pistou

 

In This Chapter

Onion Soup with Bacon, Red Wine, Cognac, and Baguette Croutons

Butternut Squash Soup

Minestrone with Bacon

Summer Vegetable and Bacon Soup with Tomato-Basil Pistou

Mushroom-Barley-Bacon Soup

Three “B” Soup (Bacon, Bean, and Bread)

Black Bean and Bacon Soup

Lentil and Bacon Soup

Bacon Curry Split Pea Soup

Clam Chowder with Bacon-Tarragon Garnish

Lake House Clam Chowder

Most good soups start with a great stock, and in the process of creating our bacon stock, we discovered that adding bacon to any stock—homemade or store-bought—introduces a delightfully smoky, slightly creamy, and of course, salty accent that we think of as “bacon essence.” Use bacon stock in place of traditional chicken, meat, fish, or vegetable stock in almost any soup recipe and you add flavor power and heartiness. Quite often we use slab bacon cut into small pieces for a toothsome bit of chew.

When thinking about what soup recipes we wanted in our book, we knew we wanted a couple that combined bacon and beans, hence Three “B” Soup (Bacon, Bean, and Bread) and Black Bean and Bacon Soup. The Three “B” soup is a party for fresh vegetables, with onion, potato, fennel or celery, butternut squash, tomatoes, carrots, and dark leafy green kale all in the soup pot. Nothing better shows the spirit of our book: You can cook with bacon and still make something appealingly nutritious. The same holds true for Summer Vegetable and Bacon Soup with Tomato-Basil Pistou, Minestrone with Bacon, and our Mushroom-Barley-Bacon Soup, which gets “healthed up” with a handful of fresh spinach just before serving. As for legumes, we would never prepare them without bacon. Even the plainest dried legume or bean becomes a creamy flavor bomb when infused with bacon.

Serves 6

In the days before the wonderful Les Halles market was torn down and moved to the outskirts of Paris, you could fall into a bar at two in the morning and order some Champagne and oysters and, if that didn’t fill you up, a brawny onion soup topped with great cheese and a crouton would surely hold you until breakfast. Here is our homage. It just about explodes with flavor, thanks to bacon and more bacon.

4 slices thick-cut bacon, cut into ½-inch pieces

5 medium-size yellow onions, cut in half lengthwise and very thinly sliced

1 tablespoon unbleached all-purpose flour

8 cups Bacon-Flavored Stock (see box,
page 51
)

⅓ cup dry red wine

2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves, or 1 teaspoon dried thyme

1 bay leaf

1 baguette

Freshly ground black pepper

About 2 tablespoons Cognac or other brandy

1½ to 2 cups (6 to 8 ounces) coarsely grated Gruyère, Emmentaler, or Comté cheese

1
Cook the bacon in a large Dutch oven or heavy soup pot over medium heat until browned and the fat is rendered, 5 to 10 minutes, stirring often and adjusting the heat as necessary. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the bacon to a paper towel-lined plate to drain.

2
Add the onions to the bacon fat in the pot, stirring to coat the onions well. Cook the onions over medium to medium-high heat until lightly browned, 20 to 25 minutes, stirring often. Adjust the heat so that the onions sizzle gently without browning too quickly and burning. Then, reduce the heat to medium-low and cook the onions until they are very soft and deeply browned, 30 to 40 minutes longer, stirring often. As the onions cook, occasionally scrape up any brown bits from the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon.

3
Stir in the flour and cook until it is lightly colored, about 1 minute. Stir in the drained bacon, Bacon-Flavored Stock, red wine, thyme, and bay leaf. Scrape the bottom of the pot with the wooden spoon again to loosen any brown bits. Increase the heat sufficiently to let the soup come to a boil. Then, reduce the heat as necessary and let the soup simmer, partially covered, until the flavors blend, 15 to 20 minutes, skimming any fat or foam that rises to the surface with a large spoon.

4
Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 400˚F.

5
Depending on the size of the baguette and the size of the ramekins or soup crocks, you’ll need 1 to 2 slices of baguette per bowl of soup. The slices should be able to support the cheese and prevent it from melting into the soup. Cut the baguette diagonally into ¾-inch-thick slices so that the slices will fit snuggly into each ramekin or soup crock. Arrange the slices of bread in a single layer on a baking sheet and bake them until golden at the edges, 8 to 10 minutes.