Category — Ingredients

Bacon has been a significant trend in all facets of the restaurant and cooking industry for the past few years. Everyone has their favorite bacon over-indulgence and bacon-mania has yet to reach its peak. Here are a few fun and almost disturbing (but still delicious) bacon-ventions:

Bacon Jam

Bacon cooked down and puréed with caramelized onions. Spread it on your morning toast. Buy it here.



Wild Turkey Bacon Sandwich

A clever play on words, this bacon sandwich is meant to peak the interests of, then severely let down, any veg-heads or pork-less eaters. Tip back the Wild Turkey and chow on this sandwich.



Bacon Floss

That’s right, we Americans have answered the age old question of “how can we incorporate bacon into dental hygeine?” Buy your bacon floss here.



Bacon USB Flash Drive

“BBQ Port:” Stay bacon-crazy with this flash drive. Other food-drives available here.



Baconnaise

“The Ultimate Bacon Flavored Spread”



The BA-K-47

The folks at This Is Freakin Ridiculous created this bacon-based AK-47. Although it won’t prevent burglaries, the BA-K-47 is effective against vegetarians and members of PETA



And of Course: The Bacon Explosion

No bacon list is complete without the ubiquitous Bacon Explosion: Two pounds of pork sausage and two pounds of bacon inter-woven, smoked, then slathered in BBQ sauce. Happy heart attack!

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We eat vegetables almost exclusively in savory dishes. Many vegetables, however, are naturally sweet and have intense aromas which work exceedingly well in desserts. I wanted to create a dessert featuring vegetables and I started by brainstorming which vegetables could work well in a dessert.

The first vegetable was an easy choice: Carrots. Carrots are one of the sweetest vegetables on Earth and they pair well with baking spices like clove, cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice and with sweeteners like honey and molasses. We add carrots to stocks for an added sweetness and carrot cake is a staple of bakeries around the country.

Beets might seem like an odd dessert flavor but they are quite sweet. Afterall, a great portion of granulated sugar is processed and refined from sugar beets. One of my favorite side dishes is roasted beets with honey and dill. Used with restraint, the unique flavor of beets can work well in a dessert.

The final vegetable in this dessert is celery. Celery is almost more of an aromatic than it is a vegetable. It has a delightfully musty and sweet aroma. Celery is also nothing new to dessert at Garrett’s Table. With a bit of added sugar, celery can add a refreshing, aromatic flare to any dessert, along with a crunchy texture.

Ok so what the heck is the dessert??? A very soft thyme spongecake is filled with a beet and honey caramel. The caramel is quite thick at room temperature but, when baked in the center of the cake, it becomes very liquid and flows out of the cake when cut.

Next to the thyme and beet caramel cake is a spiced carrot and cream cheese sorbet. The sorbet is frozen into the shape of a carrot (a technique I’ve used previously in a Tiramisu Créme Brulée) and it is resting on some ground, candied walnuts.

A sweetened celery puree adds brightness and acidity which help to cut through the richness of the spongecake. Dollops of honey-fluff, fresh thyme leaves, and diced celery are the finishing elements of this unique dessert.

So go ahead…enjoy your vegetables!

I’m more than happy to share my secrets and my recipes. If you would like the recipe for this vegetable dessert, simply sign up for the Garrett’s Table e-mail newsletter. Signing up couldn’t be easier. Click the button below and enter your e-mail address and you’ll start receiving Garrett’s Table updates along with subscriber-only recipes and content. I’ll include the recipe for this vegetable dessert, with instructions on how to make your own sorbet mold, in my next mailing (April 1, 2010). All e-mail addresses are confidential and you can unsubscribe at any time.

These stunning photographs were taken by Mike Boehmer.

Mike is a Chicago-based photographer and a regular contributor to The Windy Pixel. Please visit www.mikeboehmer.com for more fantastic photography!

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Celery, or Apium graveolens, is an enlarged version of a bitter Eurasian herb called smallage. The modern form of celery began it’s cultivation in 15th century Italy, and it remained a rare delicacy until the 19th century. According to Harold McGee, author of On Food and Cooking, celery “has a distinctive but subtle aroma due to unusual compounds called phthalides that it shares with walnuts…and terpenes that provide light pine and citrus notes.”

Because of it’s aromatic qualities, celery has been used in the flavoring bases of many regional cuisines, including the French mirepoix and the Cajun trinity. Celery stalks are extremely healthy because they contain very few calories and an immense amount of dietary fiber. Celery seeds contain a high proportion of calcium, and it may not surprise you that they’ve been administered as medicine for hundreds of years. The seeds are very aromatic as well and, here in Chicago, we know them best ground with salt and sprinkled on top of our hot dogs. Celery seed and celery juice adds extra dimension of savory-ness to the classic bloody mary.

Celery is one of my personal favorite foods. When I’m in need of something fresh, I’ll peel a stalk and eat it either plain or with peanut butter and raisins. I often slice the peeled stalk, blanch it in water seasoned with sugar and celery salt, and toss the celery in a bit of melted butter to make a flavorful but healthy side dish. Celery is not limited to the savory kitchen. It’s subtle but persistent aromatic qualities work incredibly well when sweetened. Keep reading Garrett’s Table in the coming days to see celery’s sweet side.

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Plantains are almost identical to bananas in appearance. In some parts of the world, plantains are called bananas and what we know as a banana is a “dessert banana.” A plantain, however, is much harder than a banana, with a very high starch content. Plantains require cooking and, as I like to describe them, are like the lovechild of a banana and a potato. They combine the flavor neutrality of a starch with the sweetness of a banana.

Like bananas, plantains are native to Southeast Asia, however, they have flourished in Central America and the Caribbean, both botanically and culturally. Plantains are a staple starch in the Caribbean and Central America. Tostones are ubiquitous in this part of the world. They are made by first frying a slice of plantain. Once the slice is slightly softened, it’s flattened into a disk then fried once more, often in pork lard, to create a crisp-on-the-outside, creamy-on-the-inside delicacy that can be topped with anything from mango to black beans to coconut.

Tostones: A fried plantain delicacy

The plantain tree yields other edible treat besides it’s fruit. The blossoms are often harvested and used in salads in Vietnam, Thailand, and Laos, much as you might find banana blossoms on the menu at a Thai restaurant. Plantain leaves can be used as wrappers for Mexican and Central American style tamales. Since the plantain is in a family of starches, thin slices can be deep fried and caramelized to perfection, yielding a slightly sweet but impressively crunchy snack.

Keep your mind, eyes, and RSS feeds glued to Garrett’s Table in the coming days for a dish incorporating fried plantains, along with other tropical flavors.

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Fennel is a fantastically flavorful and versatile ingredient. It can stand alone as the main flavor of a dish and play an accompanying role (as in Latke Wrapped Pork Tenderloin with Braised Fennel). Its delightful anise flavor can be used in savory and sweet applications (as in Fennel and Orange Páte de Fruit). We even drink fennel, considering its role in flavoring the notorious spirit absinthe.

Fennel owes its aromatic, licorice-like flavor to anethol, a volatile aroma compound also found in anise and star anise. The fennel we eat is a cultivated form called Florence Fennel. The anethol in Florence Fennel is not nearly as intense and the flavor is more sweet than other wild forms of Foeniculum F. vulgare. Culinarily, the bulb of Florence Fennel is most commonly used. Shaved very thin and dressed with a light balsamic vinaigrette, fennel bulb makes a bright, refreshing salad. Sliced into wedges and braised with butter and white wine, the flavor of fennel mellows significantly and the bulb becomes and tender and succulent side dish. Although the stalks and fronds of the fennel plant are not used very often (the stalks are notoriously woody) they can be blanched and pureed or used to garnish a dish. Aside from the bulb, we eat fennel seeds quite often and they are a ubiquitous ingredient in Italian sausage.

A pile of delicate fennel fronds

The ancient Greeks called Fennel marathon and Marathon (of the famed Battle of Marathon in 490 BC) owes it’s name to this aromatic vegetable. Fennel’s aromatic qualities are not surprising considering its close relationship to dill, evident in the shape and nature of it’s flowers. Like most herbs and aromatic vegetables, Fennel has been used as medicine in addition to food.

Fennel bulbs and seeds have been used as herbal medicine for millenia. Fennel aids in digestions, improves eye sight if eaten raw, is a natural diuretic, and improves the nutritional potency of breast milk. So eat all the fennel you possibly can!

Visit Garrett’s Table in the coming days for a fantastic recipe incorporating fennel.

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