PSA: Reduce Kitchen Waste. Hack Your Bacon Grease!
The hot topic among chefs right now is calling attention to and reducing kitchen waste. Massimo Bottura is doing it with his amazing Refectorio project at the Expo in Milan. Rene Redzepi has been pushing the envelope with “Trash Cooking” at Noma for a while. Dan Barber did a whole pop-up around food waste this spring and has his own "WastEd" salad on offer right now at sweetgreen in New York City. Even Dana Cowin and Food + Wine are on board with their #loveuglyfood campaign.
It's an extremely admirable and important trend and I try to employ it as much as possible in my own cooking, even if that just translates to making sure I don't let something go bad in the fridge rather than trying to cook or use unconventional "waste" ingredients.
But with all their work in the back of my mind, the other night, when my better half wanted BLT’s for dinner, I got a bit cheeky. And I thought about a few things. 1) What should I do with the rest of this bacon? 2) What do I do with all this bacon grease?!?
Usually, the answer is to freeze it and throw it away. But that night a light bulb went off… Just keep cooking! So I grabbed some mushrooms and some onions and whipped up truly delicious mix-ins for our lunch salads the next day. And generated significantly less kitchen waste in the process.
“When Life Gives You Bacon Fat” Mushroom and Mixed Caramelized Onion Salad with Apple Cider Dijon Vinaigrette
- 1 pound bacon
- 15-20 cremini mushrooms, cleaned and sliced (including the stem, less waste!)
- 1-2 shallots, thinly sliced
- 1-2 yellow onion, thinly sliced
- Salt and pepper
- Cooked farro
- 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
- 1 ½ tablespoons apple cider vinegar (or red wine vinegar is good too)
- ¼ cup olive oil
Bacon. I’m sure you have the technique on this one down already but let’s review because you might be surprised to learn that it cooks best when you start the pan cold. Really bacon should be cooked in the cast-iron skillet that you inherited from your grandmother and has been seasoned over the course of the last half century, but let’s be practical… get your one non-stick frying pan out and save yourself time on cleanup because you still need to get up for work in the morning.
Don’t turn on the heat yet!
Place strips of the bacon into the cold pan and then turn the heat up to medium-low. As the bacon starts cooking it will release its fat into the pan (fat which you will use to glorious effect later on). When it starts to buckle and curl, use a fork to flip each piece and cook the other side. Keep cooking and flipping until the desired level of crispiness is attained (I like it very crispy) and then remove and “drain” the bacon on a paper towel over a plate. You’ll have to do multiple batches to cook the full pound of bacon.
Which leads to a lot of grease. In between the batches, drain off the grease by pouring it into a mason jar. Keep it on the side for later.
Now that the bacon is done, let’s capitalize on all this highly flavored grease and utilize one of my favorite techniques: caramelization! A purist will tell you not to do this in a non-stick pan but yours is already dirty, your kitchen is not that big, and why would you want to clean an extra pan? So pour some of the bacon grease back into the pan and turn the heat on to medium-low. Now add your shallots and onions. Sauté them slowly allowing them to cook in the liquids they release and the bacon grease for about 25-30 minutes, really just checking and giving them a stir every 5 minutes or so. Just be careful not to have the heat too high or you’ll scorch or burn them. They should be done and beautifully golden after about 30 minutes.
Transfer the onions out of the pan and add a bit more of your liquid bacon grease. Turn the heat on medium-low again and re-warm the grease. Then add your mushrooms with some salt and pepper. Sauté the mushrooms until they are tender and golden brown, usually 6-7 minutes max.
Combine the mushrooms with the onions and set them aside to put on your salad.
Grab your lunch container and fill it with arugula. Put a healthy serving of the onions and mushrooms on top, along with a handful of cooked farro. Take a strip or two of your bacon and crumble that in as well.
Now make a super quick Dijon Vinaigrette to pack on the side. Get a small bowl and whisk together 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard, 1 ½ tablespoons apple cider vinegar, ¼ cup of olive oil and some salt and pepper. Taste it and adjust. But you just opened the Pandora’s box of making your own dressing. You’ll never go back to store bought ever again.
Enjoy the undeniable joys of multi-dimensional bacon flavors AND the fact that you've taken one step closer to joining an international movement in reducing kitchen and food waste. Sort of...