Now you may be thinking, ‘she’s really lost it this time’ but I promise you, this is incredible. I came across the idea on a few American websites, where they call it ‘praline bacon’. It’s basically smoked streaky bacon, candied and topped with toasted, caramelised pecans. This is a new high in the world of candied bacon quite frankly and I think it may have overtaken candied bacon ice cream as the best candied bacon recipe of all time (yes, praline bacon ice cream will be made very soon).

The combination of salty bacon, sweet sugar and those nuts is just…oh my goodness. The sound I made when I bit into it was like a combination of the sounds made when Homer Simpson eats a donut and Greg Wallace puts a big spoonful of profiteroles into his gob, to the power of 10 guilty pleasures. If you think the idea of candying bacon is weird, you’re missing a major trick – check out my post on candied bacon and what to do with it and then go and make some. Preferably this recipe.

Next time I need me some nibbles I’m serving praline bacon but seriously, and this is a warning – do not make these when you’re in the house by yourself because once you’ve had a bite, they own you. All self-control is gone and when they are finished, there will be nothing left in that house apart from you and your guilt.

Praline Bacon

Smoked streaky bacon rashers
Light brown sugar
Finely chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 200C and lay out the bacon rashers on a baking tray. Cook them for about 8 minutes (I found this is the optimum time), until the fat is starting to crisp up. Remove from the oven and sprinkle light brown sugar over each rasher. Follow with chopped pecans, pressing them down on to the bacon slightly. Cook for a further five minutes, watching carefully.

Remove from the oven and carefully place each piece on to a cooling rack. Space them apart so they don’t touch each other and stick together. After 5 minutes they will be cool, hardened and ready to eat. Either chop into sections as nibbles or just eat as is. They’re addictive; don’t say I didn’t warn you.

If you make these in advance for a party as nibbles then you’ll need to warm them up before serving, otherwise they will go soft.

Food Stories has been predominantly recipe (not restaurant) focused this year. Creating is what makes me feel happiest inside, it turns out. So here are my favourite recipes of 2011, followed by the most memorable guilty pleasures; it would be terribly neglectful to exclude the latter, I think, as it’s surely clear by now that I’m quite partial to a filthy (probably pork-based, definitely artery-shuddering) snackette, or four.

1. Egg Yolk Ravioli (top photo)

It took three attempts, but I eventually nailed this recipe and was rewarded with some of the most decadent pasta I’ve ever eaten; a quivering yolk coddled by a ring of spinach and ricotta, ready to ooze headlong into a sauce that is made almost entirely from melted butter. Crushed pink peppercorns and purple basil made it one of my prettiest plates of 2011, too.

2. Piri Piri Chicken

2011 was the year I got even more into BBQ. Come drizzle, hail or sunshine, I was out there guarding that Weber, tongs in hand, bucket of meat on standby. We worked our way through jerk; brisket; brats cooked in beer; pulled pork and an obscene amount of wings (more on those later) but one of my favourite recipes was this piri piri chicken, inspired by a local takeaway. The combination of charred chicken (for piri piri must be charred), feisty chilli and tangy vinegar sauce made this one of my hits of the summer.

3. Boston Baked Beans

These rich and smoky Boston baked beans are thick with molasses and packed with nubs of smoked pork belly. They’re about as different to regular baked beans as you can imagine and they rocked my world.

4. Baghdad Eggs

I first came across Baghdad eggs in Jake Tilson’s brilliant cook book, ‘A Tale of 12 Kitchens’. This combination of  onions, sharp yoghurt and spiced butter on eggs is now my favourite weekend brunch.

5. Daim Bar Ice Cream

I visited Sweden this year and re-discovered Daim Bars. They went straight into ice cream. I watched my boyfriend devour the remains of this, straight from the tub with a spoon, after which he lay back, clutching his stomach, moaning “I feel siiiiiiick”. In a good way, you understand.

6. Ham Cooked in Coca Cola with a Rum and Molasses Glaze

The only way to make this sticky-sweet ham any better would be to pull great big hunks off it, stick it in a sandwich with some deep fried pickles and…oh, wait a minute.

7. Hickory Smoked Hot Wings 

After my first batch of home made hot wings, I wanted to do a variation and decided to smoke them using hickory wood chips, before dousing them as usual in Frank’s Hot Sauce and melted butter. Come to mama.

8. Smoky Aubergine and Lamb Pide

Pide are like a pointy Middle Eastern version of pizza. I based the recipe on my ‘Peckham Pizza’ (based on lahmacun). The topping is an intense paste made from spiced, minced lamb and the flesh from a charred aubergine. Garnished with chopped pickles and herbs, they’re lovely eaten as is, or wrapped around some salad.

 9. Pork Pibil Tacos

This pibil was made with pork knuckles and smothered in achiote paste – a wonderful ingredient which simply has no substitute. The tacos were spicy, drizzled as they were with a sauce made from orange juice, onion and scotch bonnet chillies.

10. Sausage Rolls with Apricots and Whisky-Caramelised Onions

And finally, a seasonal entry at number 10, my new favourite sausage roll recipe. Onions were slowly, slowly caramelised then bubbled furiously with whisky before going into these sausage rolls along with some dried apricots. The sweetness worked so well with the sausage meat and I’ve had great feedback from people who’ve made them this Christmas.

For the guilty pleasures, I’ve exercised some restraint (most uncharacteristic) and narrowed it down to five:

1. Baked Gnocchi with Gorgonzola and Spinach

Sneaking in on 3rd Jan was this rather naughty dish I made for my boyfriend’s birthday dinner. Home-made gnocchi baked in a sauce of Gorgonzola and cream, with a little spinach thrown in to ease the guilt. The gnocchi goes crispy on top while remaining gooey and soft underneath. A cardiologist’s nightmare.

2. Wedge Salad with Blue Cheese Dressing and Candied Bacon

Candied bacon is definitely one of my top guilty pleasures of the year, so much so I wrote a whole post about making it and using it. I have fond memories though of this ‘salad’ garnish, chopped candied bacon sprinkled over a river of blue cheese dressing and crunchy iceberg.

3. Deep Fried Pickles

Everyone went mad for these in 2011. I stuffed mine into a sandwich with coca cola ham and hot sauce. Then I had a lie down.

4. Meatwagon Burgers

I’ve followed Yianni’s journey from his van in Peckham, through #Meateasy in New Cross and now to Meat Liquor via The Rye. The latter has to be the most convenient and dangerous burger vending situation ever in existence if the state of my waistline is anything to go by. The Rye pub is opposite my house you see and for a few glorious months I needed to do little more than hop over the road to get my fix. Now they’re gone and Meat Liquor is in central London. I could cry.

5. Eggy Bread and Candied Bacon Sandwich

In at number 5: the sandwich of shame. I had candied bacon to hand and I’d just made eggy bread. It had to be done, see? We felt the guilt after eating this but damn, it was good. Sick, but good. If you’re into sandwiches, I’ve written a post about my top 5 here.

Phew. No wonder I need to lose weight. The diet inevitably starts er, tomorrow but until then I’ve got a Ginger Pig rib eye with my name on it. Happy New Year everyone. Thank you for reading and here’s to a tasty 2012. Cheers!

The SPAM mì (it’s a bánh mì with SPAM)

SPAM: chopped pork and ham in a can. It’s probably not something you ever expected to read about on this blog, or many other food blogs, to be fair but hold your horses right there reader, because I’ve a few things I want to say about it. Let’s take some time to enter the realms of guilty pleasure, to put aside all thoughts of pork as you generally know it and (if your family was anything like mine), to cast your minds back towards the flavours of childhood.

Maybe you are turning up your nose right now, before wistfully reminiscing about the sophisticated little you tugging on your granny’s starched apron strings while she whisked resplendent glossy meringues and taught you all the secrets of perfect pickles. Well while you did that, I was eating SPAM (actually, my nan made stellar pickles and my parents are great cooks but that’s not the point); for me and my childish palate, highlights were salty chopped pig from a tin, and Mr. Brain’s faggots.

As I got older I turned my back on SPAM, deciding I’d grown out of it; I was embarrassed to admit it had ever passed my lips. It was like ditching an old mate because you moved up to big school and decided they’re not good enough to fit in with the cool kids. Harsh. It’s only in recent years I’ve come to terms with the fact that it’s OK to eat something and damn well enjoy it once in a while, even if you know deep down it’s pretty wrong.

SPAM is meat in a can; let’s think about what that means. I’m aware that it doesn’t contain the finest cuts of rare breed swine with a royal blood line and that what it does contain is salty as hell, conceals a significant proportion of your daily fat intake and slides out of the can with an alarming jelly-lubed slurp. There’s no denying though, that on certain days in certain ways, I’ll chomp my way down memory lane and like it.

And you know what? It’s amazing how many people share in my occasional appreciation. Simon Majumdar for example, revelled in his opportunity to judge at the SPAM cook of the year awards, while my good friend Lizzie introduced me to one of her family’s favourite ways to eat it. Su-Lin serves up a classic SPAM, egg and rice, Sunflower makes some stonking Chinese pancakes and the Hawaiians are mad for SPAM Musubi.

When the people at SPAM offered to send me a cooking set, I accepted with the enthusiasm of the ten year old me. In it were such treasures as a SPAM apron; a SPAM oven glove; two pens (appropriately embellished, obviously); a cook book; a spatula and of course, a tin of SPAM. In return for this gift, the official people have asked me to come up with a recipe. I thought about the best way to use it. It’s a luncheon meat and the only really acceptable time to eat luncheon meat for me is in either something Chinese-style or in a dish similarly spiced, funked and/or pickled…

Enter the SPAM mi (that’s a bánh mì using – you’ve guessed it – SPAM). I smothered slices with a mixture of crushed garlic, black pepper, fish sauce and sesame oil before frying until crisp and stuffing into warmed baguette piled high with familiar bánh mì garnishes. It really hit the spot.

The taste and smell of the pink fried slices transported me back in time almost instantly, but my own personal history with the mystery meat is minuscule compared to the bigger picture. World War II troops practically lived on the stuff and in Hawaii, they still do the same today, feeling sufficiently passionate to celebrate it with the annual Waikiki SPAM Jam festival. It’s even on the menu at Maccy D’s. There’s a fan club, an outrageously famous comedy sketch, a cook book and a museum. While I probably limit my own consumption to a couple of tins per year, it’s a guilty pleasure that I’m happy to embrace because let’s face it, sometimes only the saline whack of a low budget cured pork product will do.

SPAM mi

340g SPAM (can size), cut into 1cm slices
2 tablespoons coarse, crushed black pepper
2 tablespoons fish sauce
1 teaspoon sesame oil
1 large clove crushed garlic

Garnish

Coriander leaves
Mint leaves
Sliced red chilli
Thinly sliced red onion or spring onion
Mayonnaise
Thin, de-seeded cucumber slices
Carrot and daikon pickle (there are loads of recipes out there – it’s really about adjusting to taste. Here’s one from Viet World Kitchen).

Baguette (to stuff it all into. Apparently the best ones are made from rice flour but I’ve never found one so I just use a normal one and scoop out a bit of the insides if it’s really dense).

For the SPAM, mix the pepper, fish sauce, sesame oil and garlic together well then rub over the SPAM slices and allow to marinate for an hour. After this time, fry the slices in a small amount of vegetable oil until golden and crisp on both sides. Drain on kitchen paper.

To build, lightly warm your baguette in the oven and then smear on the mayo, add the SPAM and all your other ingredients as desired.

Earlier this year, on a dark, cold night in South London, a group of six bloggers gathered together to celebrate some gastronomic guilty pleasures – those things you really shouldn’t enjoy eating but oh, how you do. We had so much fun the first time round that we gathered again a couple of days ago for round two. I decided to step up my game this time and bring not one but two guilty pleasures, the first a regular in my repertoire and the second, one I’d been sitting on, just waiting for the right opportunity to make it.

We all arrived at host Niamh’s house, dripping wet from pelting rain but with bags of enthusiasm for the feasting ahead. As so many of us were to include pork in our offerings, we decided to re-name the meal ‘pork party’ and amused ourselves with the expected nature of extra traffic this would likely bring to our blogs, while nibbling on ‘canapes’ of cheese strings, babybels and dairylea dunkers, provided by Chris.

We decided to start the meal proper with some mini chorizo pizzas from Niamh, followed by my first GP of soft boiled eggs with buttery anchovy soldiers. Somehow I managed to hard boil the eggs and when Niamh cooked some more they were under-done; who knew food bloggers can’t even boil an egg?! Thankfully, the anchovy dippers went down a treat despite the double fail.

Next Lizzie whipped up some Spam pancakes or Spamcakes, as they were quickly re-named. These were wonderfully stodgy, with a salty hit from the spam – even better dunked in a dollop of hot sauce for a double GP hit. As we all scoffed the pancakes, a spicy, meaty aroma started to waft around the kitchen and Dan soon produced his ‘sleasy cheesy silly chilli’; nachos were melded together with an oozing layer of melted red Leicester, ready for scooping up piles of his frankly rather brilliant chilli. His secret apparently, is to add a splash of Dave’s Insanity Sauce plus a touch of our beloved swine meat. Always with the swine. It was meaty, fiery goodness and I ate rather too much of it. I won’t go into details.

Niamh did what she does best and whacked a big old lump of spiced pig belly in the oven,  roasting until the crackling was bubbly crisp and the meat still juicy. You can never eat enough pork in our opinion, which brings me nicely onto my second contribution – David Lebovitz’s candied bacon ice cream (top photo). I even bought an ice cream maker just for this one recipe. I’ve only made ice cream once before and I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was, particularly now I don’t have to take it out of the freezer and stir it every couple of hours. One word of warning though, you’ve got to watch that bacon like a HAWK. I burnt two lots and totally ruined a baking tray in the process.

Once I’d finally managed to get it right, the bacon was chopped into teeny pieces and stirred through the ice cream at the last minute. The end result was a vanilla scented fudgy flavour from the brown sugar, although I was a little disappointed that it didn’t taste more bacon-y so I candied some extra at the last minute to sprinkle on top. If you are the least bit sceptical about bacon ice cream let me reassure you, it really does work. Think bacon with maple syrup and honey glazed ham – the sweet/smoke/meat combo is a winner.

So there you have it – an unashamed pork-fest, with a bit of plastic cheese and anchovy dippers thrown in. Guilty pleasures ahoy. Dan and Denise also brought along some interesting wines, which you can read about on their blogs. My personal favourite was the Alois Lageder Gewürztraminer, which made a valiant attempt at taming that ferocious beast of a chilli. The wine flowed, the food kept-a-comin’ and the revelery was typically raucous. We faced some nasty weather conditions, a broken down fridge, a double egg disaster and a crackling fail but ultimately, we triumphed, such is our dedication to the filthy snack.

You can see my full Flickr set from the evening here.

Thanks to Niamh for the top photo.