Reg readers scrap over ultimate bacon sandwich Our post-pub nosh deathmatches are proving highly popular with Reg reader gourmets, but we should have known better than to stray into that most hazardous of culinary minefields: just how to make the ultimate bacon sarnie. Last week's clash of titans featured our version of said butty, featuring hand-sliced white bread, bacon …
Used to make bacon sandwiches for my whole team. You needed a pack of smoke bacon and 1/2 baguette per person. Lacking proper cooking facilities at work, I had to microwave the bacon on a special 'microwave bacon tray' which worked surprisingly well. A bit of butter and bacon juice on the bread, add bacon and ketchup et voila - awesome.
Healthy too, as we were never able to eat lunch afterwards...
Baguette changes everything. As soon as you move into baguette territory you have truly strayed from the bacon sarnie herd and have wandered into brie territory.
In this instance, you much immediately layer the bottom of the baguette with bacon, add slices of brie and a healthy dose of relish. Warming the baguette first allows for gooey brie goodness.
"I had to microwave the bacon"
The words of the Prosecutor repeating this phrase will haunt you in your cold cell at night.
*ponders*
Anyone know what prison bacon sarnies are like?
Hopefully they involve undercooked fatty bits, unsalted streaky bacon and lashings of mayonnaise.
"Whisky" is not Irish - that would probably get your face punched in both countries. Irish Whiskey, Scotch Whisky. Canadian or Japanese "Whisky" would probably only earn a punch in Scotland.
Some interesting background detail here: http://www.tullamoredew-usa.com/irish-whiskey/irish-scotch.asp
Also, you spelled "Michael" wrong.
Anon 'cos I'm at work just now.
This mention of Scotch whisky reminds me of a radio show I heard many years ago talking about the history of the liquor. The gist of it is that although part of the credit for the modern distilling process that enabled large-scale production goes to a Scotsman, Robert Stein, it was actually an Irishman, Aeneas Coffey, who improved on Stein's design to make the process cheaper and more efficient and thus economically viable. Coffey had been for many years the head of Customs and Excise in Dublin and, as the Crown's representative in Ireland and the person who was responsible for destroying illegal stills and collecting taxes, was a hated figure at the time. He also had a keen interest in whiskey, though, and had the technical skills to come up with his own his improved still design. When he left his position as the number one excise man, he patented his invention and tried to get backing to apply the invention in his native Ireland. Due to his past, however, nobody would support his endeavour (apart from one brief, failed venture, it seems) and he was forced to travel abroad in order to further his venture. So it was that he came to have his invention put to practical use in Scotland where, through a combination of his inventiveness, happenstance (a disease affecting grapes used in the premier spirit of the time--Cognac--left an opening in the market, while the whisky produced appealed to the English taste) and venture capital, Scotch whisky effectively exploded onto the scene and changed the industry completely.
So in short, the single malt whiskies that are today synonymous with Scotch, actually owes a huge debt to the Irish--on the one hand thanks to Coffey's design, but also, on the other, thanks to the spite of his fellow Irishmen in turning their back on his invention due to his past job and associations.
As the OP said, I might get punched in the face for recounting this story were I in Scotland. As we're online, though, I think that downvotes are a more likely outcome, so I've had to do a bit of searching to corroborate this account. I wasn't able to verify everything, but these two links seem to cover the basic outline:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeneas_Coffey
http://www.kennetpans.info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=198&Itemid=336
Downvote away!
Not at all. Very interesting post.
Oh, and Micheal, the comment about spelling was meant to be flip but I forgot my smiley - soz! :) Actually, I assumed it was just because someone already had "Michael".
And I don't think anyone really gets punched for any of those ... the most you'll get is some bore droning on and on about how to ... er ... spell it correctly ... um ..... sorry again.
As a veggie I can only presume that you dead animal eaters have buggered your taste buds that much that you need all that spice \ no spice fat to make up for your lack.
However, I am not adverse to a bit of snackery myself and propose this as the "healthy alternative"
You will need
2 slices of slightly toasted white bread
2 Vege Sausages (meat sausages if you swing that way)
loads of mushrooms fried in butter*
1 Large egg **
Some chipotle sauce
Fry eggs and sausages - assemble sandwich, add chipotle sauce
*mushrooms are mainly for dropping down your top
** yes yes, an egg isn't a vegetable, but in fact a chickens period
"you dead animal eaters"
"Fry eggs"
"** yes yes, an egg isn't a vegetable, but in fact a chickens period"
Perhaps, but I'm still unsure how you can be against eating meat but still support an industry that kills all the male chicks soon after birth. Eating eggs isn't 'bloodless'.
FYI I eat meat, I just don't like veggie hypocrisy.
"I'm still unsure how you can be against eating meat but still support an industry that kills all the male chicks soon after birth. Eating eggs isn't 'bloodless'."
Quite so. Doesn't matter if they're 'free range' or 'organic' or have any other friendly marketing label; they all come from the same machine.
Dead Animal Eaters How dare you use such a term sir!!!!! If $DEITY didn't intend for us to eat dead animals why did he/she make them out of such tasty (cured and smoked) meat??? Well......
And as for you Haines, there I was enjoying my low-GI high fibre brown bread with low-fat spread when I saw your heinous article, I immediately had to break out the emergency bacon and white bread supplies, Suitably satisfied by two smoked rashers of bacon seasoned with a small amount of Hellmann's barbecue (brown) sauce I had to do 30 minutes penance on the exercise bike to atone for my indulgence.
"If $DEITY didn't intend for us to eat dead animals why did he/she make them out of such tasty (cured and smoked) meat???"
I think you'll find that in this particular instance $DEITY very deliberately made it very tasty and then told us all not to eat it, just to annoy us. It's just that Christians conveniently ignore that part of the bible, on the grounds that "bacon tastes good. Pork chops taste good."
I once knew a Saudi visitor to the UK who ordered a breakfast sandwich unknowingly, ate it and declared it to be "the best sandwich I have ever eaten in my life". He was a little gutted and crestfallen to discover that it involved pork as he'd never order it knowingly, but still stuck to his guns on the taste experience.
I have a few problems with your post.....
"As a veggie I can only presume that you dead animal eaters have buggered your taste buds that much that you need all that spice"
it has been my experience that vegetarian food is so bland that it takes a variety of spices and seasoning to actually make the food interesting to the pallet...
"2 Vege Sausages"
now here's the thing, Most low end supermarket sausages only have a 5% meat content and only just qualify as a meat product.. that aside, If your going to eat meat, eat meat, "fake meat" is a crime against the culinary world. its wrong, it has no place in society. never refer to something that has NO meat as a sausage !!
"** yes yes, an egg isn't a vegetable, but in fact a chickens period"
now this is where I have to put on my pedantic hat.... a chickens egg is not a chickens period, it is in fact a chickens ovulation....
Vegetarians should be the first against the wall when the revolution comes....
Yes, you are indeed dead animal eaters, I don't see what you pricks have against that, I myself eat dead vegetables. Maybe you don't like that fact. Truthfully don't try to second guess why I am a vegetarian, it's not about the fluffy animals. Who wants the towns overrun by feral cows? The meat industry actually goes a long way to protect species that would of died off. I'm happy you find them tasty, I actually find most of them a bit smelly. But each to their own I guess. In no particular order.....
@richard81 - Lulz - my eggs come from my chickens, all rescued from harsh factory life.
@marty - Yes, I also find it strange that vegetarians eat fake meat. Maybe They should call call vege sausages "tube shaped micro proteins"
@marty - Vege food is bland - PMSl obviously you are correct and I bow down to your superior gastro-knowledge. Maybe you haven't eaten at the right hay troughs. Oh, and pedantry accepted.
@Lord Voldemortgage - most bacon eaters would agree - a vege saus and egg buttie is not bacon.
@percat - Totally agree - I just don't eat meat, nothing to do with some form of fluffy animal agenda - if the activist vege\vegan types actually debated the issue properly they would be walking around naked, only drinking rainwater.
Surprised nobody from Scotland has brought up the Caledonian bread of choice: the morning roll
Even the local Greggs have given up punting the oblong "breakfast" rolls they used to punt bacon in and have started using the proper Scottish ones. They still don't do a haggis roll though...
Used to go to a cafe that did egg and bacon sarnies with doorsteps of fresh crusty white bread.
Bacon and eggs cooked in a swimming pool of a frying pan that left you holding the thing at arms length to avoid the drips. Then you had to do the 'snake jaws' thing to eat it.
Food of the Gods (and guaranteed to send you to see them quickly)
Toasted/fried bread?! Noooo! That's just sick...
As demonstrated to Mrs.Judd and the Juddlet this morning, a proper bacon sarnie has to be made with fresh, crusty white bread from a split-tin loaf, thick-cut oak-smoked, Wiltshire-cure back bacon, a smearing of English butter and a splodge of HP sauce. Anything else is just wrong.
In these times of austerity, some compromises may be allowed, however, the gold standard is definitely the above.
All this talk of catsup and other abominations is fightin' talk!
Not toasted solidly, but lightly toasted is definitely the way to go. Thick unsmoked back bacon, and since I was introduced to the concept of half hp sauce and half ketchup (daddies obviously), I've never gone back
If an egg is required, it should be a duck egg, and the yolk should be kept runny.
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