Bringing Home the Bacon Jam!

bacon-jam
Although it sounds gross, once you taste a spoonful of this sweet, smoky, salty, sublime condiment, you’ll wonder how you ever managed to live without a jar of Bacon Jam in your fridge. It’s made by Joshua Henderson, who recently won the 2009 Rising Stars best Restaurant Concept Award for Seattle’s Skillet Street Food. S.S.K. IS a hip mobile restaurant that serves “seasonally relevant, locally sourced and impeccably executed bistro-style food” from a retrofitted silver Airstream trailer.

Skillet Street Food sets up camp in different nabes around Seattle, so you’ll need to check their weekly GPS schedule on-line, but one thing that doesn’t change is the long line of lunch-time customers patiently waiting for their fix. The locals rave about Skillet’s deliciously messy Poutine: hand cut fries smothered with herbs, gravy, cheddar and jack cheese and The Burger: grass-fed beef, cambazola cheese, and arugula served on a soft brioche. Not content with offering just a superb burger, they recently began gilding the burgers with a spoonful of their latest creation, Bacon Jam.

Their customers went nuts and began begging for containers of B.J.(no off-color jokes please) to take home. The staff soon started making huge vats of the stuff after-hours and selling it from their trailer. The buzz continued to spread so out-of-towners can order off the website and get the piggy marmalade delivered. An 8 oz. jar costs $10 at the trailer or $14 with shipping.

Once you open the jar and stick a finger full in your mouth, you’ll run around like a crazy person slathering it on everything in your kitchen. Once you calm down, here are a few delish Bacon Jam suggestions to get you started:

*Add a few spoonfuls to vinaigrette dressing for a spinach salad.

*Mix with chopped scallions and shredded cheddar cheese. Stuff the mixture into a hot baked potato.

*Spread it on a toasted bagel with cream cheese and slice tomato.

*Spoon it over a bag of hot micro-waved pop-corn, close the bag, shake and serve.

P.s. If you’re a DIY, Chef Henderson has graciously divulged the recipe: “We take a big bunch of really really good bacon, and render it down…add a bunch of spices,onions, etc.and let it simmer for about 6 hours. Then give it a quick puree, and blast chill it…and you have bacon jam.”

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