Bacon Marmalade

I first saw a “Bacon Jam” from Chef Barry of Char Broil’s Sizzle on the Grill. I love bacon, think it is one of God’s perfect foods. The things you can do with it! Almost every time I fire up the grill I make my “Garlic Skillet”: garlic, bacon and sweet onion smoked until tender. I serve this as a side and use the leftovers in other dishes or for seasoning. Awesome.

You can heat this up and spread it on toast or biscuits, mix it into hamburger or anywhere you want an extra kick of bacon and garlic sweetened by a little sweet onion.

Try a couple of Tbsp. in your mashed potatoes for a new twist on taters.

Thinking about Chef Barry’s Jam I already had a good start. But, with the added garlic and onions, hey, it doesn’t get any better than that. So this is what I came up with.

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook Time: 3 hours smoker, 6 hours crock pot

Grill: Royall 3000 Wood Pellet Grill

Pellets: Royall house blend, hickory, oak and cherry

Ingredients:

1 pound of bacon ends and pieces

2 cups of peeled garlic cloves

1 large sweet onion, sliced

2 Tbsp. coarse ground black pepper

2 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

Sweet Onion, Garlic, Bacon, Pepper & Worcestershire sauce

Directions:

This is an easy one. Pour everything into a skillet big enough to hold it all and put it on the smoker for 3 hours.

Pour everything into a skillet and put it on the smoker for 3 hours.

Cooking Directions: Royall Wood Pellet Grill

Open the lid and set the dial to “Smoke”, turn it on. After about five minutes you can shut the lid. Give it about 10 minutes to heat up. Patti has lined the drip pan with foil for me, it makes for easier clean up. Place your skillet directly onto the grill and just let it hang out in the smoke and get happy for 3 hour or so. This is referred to as “smoking”; the temperature is around 165 degrees.

Then, pull it and pour your smoked bacon, onion and garlic into a Crockpot for 6 hours on low.

Into a Crock Pot For 6 hours

At this point they are about as cooked down as they are going to get. Pour your bacon mixture into a colander and let the bacon drippings drain out, stirring gently now and then.

Next, pour a little at a time into your blender and blend it to a paste. Repeat the process until you have blended it all into a paste. Place it in an air tight container and refrigerate.

Note: I get a lot of questions about the kind of pellets you can use with a recipe. Keep in mind that a recipe is just an outline. Some you need follow closely like when you are making bread, but most you can do anything you can dream, our favorite way to cook. Feel free to mix and match the pellets until you find a combination you really like. Also you are only smoking at temps less than 250 degrees, anything higher is cooking and there will not be much if any smoke so it does not matter what kind of pellet you are using.

About our Recipes

We do our recipes on our patio where we have a lineup of grills, including Royall Wood Pellet Grill/Smoker, Traeger, Charmglow, Char-Broil, The Big Easy, Brinkman and Weber. I call it our “Wall of Grill”. Our grilling styles are healthy and low fat and will fit pellet heads, gas, natural wood and even charcoal purists. Almost any of our recipes can be done on any kind of good BBQ.

The important thing to keep in mind is TIME & TEMPERATURE. You can even do some of them in the oven or crock pot, but, then you lose all the flavors you get from cooking outdoors. But sometimes it does rain.

Remember that a recipe is simply an outline; it is not written in stone. Don’t be afraid to make changes to suit your taste.

Take it and run with it….

Live Your Passion,

Ken & Patti

http://datenightdoins.com