Bacon Jam (w.Video)

Main Ingredients

650 g Short Cut Bacon, medium range quality. See Notes.

2 Medium Brown Onions, or 3 small ones

5 Garlic Cloves

2 Chillies

1 small tub of Semi Dried Tomatoes. Reserve oil.

Fresh Thyme.

Flavour Base Ingredients

¾ of cup of Coffee (I used both espresso and instant, both work)

½ cup Apple Cider Vinegar

½ cup Brown sugar

¼ cup Maple Syrup (can substitute with less amount of honey)

Good Pinch of Black Pepper. NO salt, as bacon is quite salty. But you can adjust later if needed.

Little splash of Liquid Smoke

I also added a pinch of Pork Dry Rub.

1-2 splashes of Dark Rum (or Bourbon)

Splash of Balsamic vinegar

Directions

You are also able to see the video of this recipe below.

First, Prepare all your ingredients:

Cut off as much fat off the bacon and chop it up.
Chop onions and garlic
Chop up semi dried tomatoes and chillies
Peel off thyme leaves off big stalks.

Put all ingredients of your flavour base together and mix it up.

Heat up the pan and start browning your bacon in couple batches. Will take few minutes. Once nicely brown, remove from pan

Add onion and garlic to the same pan on medium heat. Fry till it gets translucent and add the oil from your semi dried tomatoes. Let it reduce a little. Add your chillies, and semi dried tomatoes and thyme. Once nicely combined and started to cook together add your cooked bacon. Combine and let cook for a min or so.

Now add your combined flavour base. Bring to simmer. Let it reduce a little. Taste and adjust flavours as you go. You might need to add more rum or balsamic, or salt or pepper.

Once you are happy with the taste, transfer to slow cooker. Add 1/2 cup of water, close the lid and cook for 4 hours on high. See Notes on cooking in Pressure Cooker or on Stove Top.

I love checking half way through, so you can still adjust things and maybe add more water if needed.Plus the smell is simply intoxicating!!

Once cooked (it should be nicely reduced and caramelised) - let cool a bit and blitz with stick blender. Now, I know that in my video I use food processor. I did for a while. However, last few batches I did, purely out of laziness I used stick blender. And it worked BETTER!!
First of all it's so much more convenient without moving the heavy food processor in out out, and washing up heaps afterwards. Secondly you can control the texture better. And it comes a bit more chunky than in food processor. Hence am changing the method here. Because I can! :)

It will be a little chunky, it's ok. It will not be as smooth as pate. - And then load up your ramekins, put cling wrap over it and to the fridge. It will last for 12 days.

Whatever you don't use it withing few days - put in the freezer. Just take up out a night before using.

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Bacon Jam (w.Video)