Happy belated 4th of July!
Unfortunately I spent most of the day on an airplane traveling to the east coast instead of grilling hot dogs and drinking beer like a good American. But there are two upsides to flying on the 4th of July…1) no one else at the airports and half empty planes and 2) fireworks from the air are pretty cool. Otherwise, it sucked.
But because of my travel schedule, I did some grilling at my brother’s house the weekend before (my youngest brother that is, not the brother without a grill). My youngest brother has both a gas grill and a Traeger Wood Pellet Grill, so we were totally set on the grill front.
The primary reason for grilling was our desire to experiment with caramelized bacon. But since you can’t make a meal out of just caramelized bacon – no matter how delicious it is – we also grilled some salmon and prepared a few other side dishes.
But first, about that caramelized bacon…it is fantastic. And here’s how we made it.
We used Burger’s Smokehouse Hickory Smoked Sliced Country Pork Jowl for our bacon. It comes in small strips that are perfect for caramelized bacon.
To prepare the bacon, we placed a few pieces on some aluminum foil and we covered one side of the bacon in brown sugar.
We experimented with making the caramelized bacon two different ways. The first time we warmed up the gas grill and put an aluminum foil ball of hickory wood pellets on the grill to add some smokiness to the flavor. Once the grill and pellets were hot, we put the bacon on the top shelf of the grill and closed the lid for 20 to 25 minutes. The second time we cooked it on the Traeger grill, smoking it at 200 degrees for about an hour and then cooking it at about 320 degrees for another 15 minutes. Both ways were good, but regardless of how the caramelized bacon is prepared, I suggest cooking it to the point of being pretty crispy for the best result.
Once the bacon is removed from the grill, let it cool for about 10 minutes to harden the sugar. And then eat it just like you would eat a piece of candy! You can also store the leftovers (if there are any, which there probably won’t be) in a sealed container for a couple days.
The main dish for our dinner was Copper Creek salmon, which we cooked on the Traeger grill. We also had a steamed artichoke, macaroni salad, and asparagus which we steamed initially and then grilled to finish. My brother marinated the salmon in soy, olive oil, Chardonnay wine, dill and dijon for about 30 minutes (longer is preferable, but we were short on time). We smoked the salmon on the Traeger for about 60 minutes at 200 degrees, and then we cooked it for another 15 minutes at about 320 degrees.
Everything was delicious, but the caramelized bacon really was the hit of the night. Caramelized bacon proves that bacon really is meat candy.