Candied Swine is Divine // Après Eats
Video Highlights:
00:20 introduction
1:15 making the marinade
1:50 adding the bacon to the marinade
2:35 putting the bacon on the smoker
3:30 mixing up the peanut butter bourbon sauce
4:30 pulling the bacon from the Camp Chef Smoker
5:00 tasting the candied bacon and dipping sauce
5:40 pairing the bacon with Crux Fermentation Project Krystal Juice IPA
5:55 Signing off
Download as a pdf: Candied Swine is Divine // Après Eats
Candied Bacon and Peanut Butter Bourbon Dipping Sauce Ingredients
Marinade -
6-8 Slices of Bacon
1 Cup Vermont Maple Syrup
1 tbs molasses
1/3 cup Frank's Red Hot Sauce
1 tbs Red Pepper Flakes
1/2 Dark Brown Sugar
Dipping Sauce -
1/3 Cup of Smooth Peanut Butter
2 tbs molasses or honey
1 tbs Vermont Maple Syrup
2 tbs Bourbon
Candied Swine is Divine Transcript
I'm Rich stoner and welcome to the All About Après Report. Remember it's our goal to give you the best places to play both on and off the mountain plus all the food, beer, gear and more to help make it epic. This episode we're going Apres Eats I'm going to take a dish that I had at a mountain during après and I'm going to rework it, reinvent it and make it my own.
Mountain Creek's Bacon Dish is My Inspiration
I was at my home state’s mountain, Mountain Creek here in New Jersey. There are not a lot of mountains in New Jersey, but I was at Mountain Creek and they had candied bacon on the menu. When you see bacon on the menu you simply have to order it. So I did and it was phenomenal, but since that time I've been working on my own specific recipe that we're going to do.
Candied Bacon With Peanut Butter Bourbon Dipping Sauce
I'm going to make smoked candied bacon with a bourbon peanut butter dipping sauce. The first thing is we have our thick cut bacon that we're going marinate. Starting off with a cup of Vermont pure maple syrup. To that I'm adding about a tablespoon of molasses, about a third of a cup of Frank's Red Hot Sauce, a tablespoon of red pepper flakes and then in a half cup of dark brown sugar. I'm going to whisk this up, bring it all together.
We're going to take our six slices of bacon and add them right to the marinade. Make sure they get in there and we'll let this sit for about a half-hour 45 minutes so that the marinade soaks into the meat before we put it on the grill. What it's going to do is all the sugar in here is going to give it a nice level of caramelization that's going to actually help it harden and candy. In the end it tastes delicious!
Cooking Low and Slow on the Camp Chef Pellet Smoker
My Camp Chef pellet smoker has been on high smoke now for about 15-20 minutes just to heat it up and get the smoke going. Now we're going to take our marinated bacon that's been sitting here for about 45 minutes and put that on
I'm going to put it, actually, away from the heat box so that it doesn't burn. Anytime you put something close to the heat box it's going to get a little bit hotter and has a tendency to, actually, over crisp. And with all this sugar on it the potential for this to burn is obviously there. So we're going to put it away from there.
Let it sit on the smoker for about 45 minutes or so at about 250 degrees. So it's going to cook pretty low pretty and slow and once we see it start to caramelize that's when we're going to take it off. But before we do that we can't let this go to waste. This is way too good. Make sure we really coat these bad boys.
Making the Peanut Butter Bourbon Dipping Sauce
While the bacon is on the smoker we're going to take that time to mix up our peanut butter bourbon dipping sauce. We're going to start off with a third of a cup of peanut butter smooth peanut butter. We're going to add in two tablespoons of molasses, giving it a nice dark color and some sweetness, one table spoon of that pure Vermont maple syrup and then we're going to use this Hopscotch Bourbon from Mad River Distillers that I reviewed on one of my last videos. We're putting about two tablespoons of this in, as well. That looks about right. Then add a little bit of water to help thin it out, mix it up and then once it's done and all together we'll put it in the microwave for about 30 seconds when we're ready to eat to heat it up just a little bit. It's going to go real well with that candied bacon.
Smoked Bacon Caramelized and Hardened
As you can see they've gotten nice and dark and caramelized. We're going to pull these off, lay them on a sheet pan and let them sit a little bit. This will allow them to harden up and then it's time to eat. We've let the bacon rest, so it's caramelized and hardened up real nice and now it's time to eat. I cut them into half slices so it's a little bit more manageable. I'm going to take it and dip it into this peanut butter bourbon sauce and give it a try.
Oh my God! The Bourbon sauce…you can taste the molasses, the sweetness of the Bourbon combined with the peanut butter. It, kind of, cuts into the heat, kind of sweetness of the bacon.
A Hoppy IPA to Pair With the Candied Bacon
Today we're going to pair it with this Krystal Juice IPA from one of my favorite breweries out of Bend Oregon, The Crux Fermentation Project. I feel like the hoppiness of this will work really well with cutting through the fat of the bacon. I’ll be sure to dip the tip of the other side so I don't double dip. We don't want to do that Seinfeld episode. There, perfect.
I'm going to crush this plate of bacon. You might find me at the hospital nearby once I'm done but until then it's all downhill from here. Cheers!
