nav[aria-label="Primary Navigation"] { padding: 0; & ul { list-style: none; width: 100%; display: flex; flex-direction: row; justify-content: start; align-items: start; gap: 30px; padding: 0; & li { margin: 0; } & ul li { list-style: none; } } }

Bacon gel - maximize bacon flavor?

johG_241326

I'm thinking about making an asparagus dish and I want to make a hollandaise sauce/cream and also a bacon gel. I've made bacon broths with a distinct bacon flavor, but I want to really maximimize the bacon flavor this time so that the gel really pops. Any ideas? I've thought about adding liquid smoke, but will it taste bacon?

Find more posts tagged with

All About Ingredients

Comments

wolfiegirl

I opened up my bottle of hickory liquid smoke and tasted it. While it no doubt tasted like hickory smoke, it was sort of vinegar-y and bacon didn't even cross my mind. So I don't think that's going to get you where you want to go. You can buy bacon gel and bacon extract flavorings but again, not sure if that would work or if either have a true bacon quality flavor. I'm interested to know what you decide to do!

Brandon_Byrd_40557

I'd stay away from liquid smoke but just use smokier bacon. The smokiest stuff I've found is from Father's Country Hams in KY. Benton's can be smokey too, but their smoke level is inconsistent in my experience.

Again, stay away from liquid smoke.

johG_241326

It took a while for the idea to be tested. But this was my approach:I crisped up 400g bacon (both cheap bacon and smoked bacon), added it to my blender with 400g raw bacon, lots of pepper and some smoked salt. Blended it and added it to a sous vide bag. Cooked it sous vide (~70 degrees C) for 12 hours. Then cooked off some of the added water, strained it and chilled it in the fridge so the fat would float to the top. I skimmed of some of the fat, but then I noticed that the bacon juice had set completely. This made me change my approach by not adding agar/gellan as it would be hard to make it fluid. So I added soy lecithin, a bit of xanthan and some thyme leaves to it, and blended for 10 seconds. The consistency was OK (but a bit runnier than a fluid gel) although I had to keep it a bit over room temperature (but not much) so that it wouldn't set completely. The taste was awesome and super rich, although there's something about crispy bacon taste