After 4 weeks curing in my fridge and another week drying out, my bacon is finally ready! Can I interest any of you in a rasher and a ride? Then do please read on….
I recently had the great fortune to attend a beginner’s curing and smoking course over in Dun Laoighre with Hick’s Pork Butchers. Myself and about another 10 carnivorous nutjobs (one of whom was definitely a sociopathic serial killer, but then again he probably thought I was one too what with my probing questions about body parts) were in attendance as Ed Hick showed us how to take a lump of meat and cure or smoke it. Or both. After a few hours we were all sent off on our merry way with a nice chunk of pig flesh, an instruction sheet, some extra curing salts (enough for a xmas ham) and a bag of wood chips for smoking. Sure what else would you be doing on a Saturday afternoon?
And now, 5 weeks later, I’ve got a kilo of genuine Crumlin bacon to play around with. No better time to get stuck into a good rasher and a ride methinks. Dublin 12’s version of the Surf n Turf. You gotta get some nice big jumbo prawns, reef the heads and shells off them, devein them with a small sharp knife and give them all a quick rinse. Then you wrap them in some thinly sliced bacon and skewer them for the barbie. Get stuck into them with a salad or just wolf them down on their own.
A RASHER AND A RIDE, CRUMLIN SURF AND TURF SALAD WITH DALKEY DRESSING
INGREDIENTS:
Large Prawns, as many as you need
One thinly sliced rasher per prawn
Dalkey Dressing: 1 tablespoon Dalkey mustard, 2 tablespoons of lemon juice, 3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar, 2 cloves of garlic minced, pinch of freshly ground pepper and 1/2 cup of olive oil.
1 head of Iceberg lettuce, sliced finely
1 fistful of baby potatoes
1 finely chopped shallot
1 heaped tablespoon of sunflower seeds
1 stick of celery, slice finely in diagonal cuts
1 teaspoon of finely chopped chives, to garnish
METHOD:
Get all the ingredients for the dressing and blitz it all up in a blender.This makes quite a lot but it keeps for ages so just lash it into a jar.
Boil or steam the spuds with the skins on them. Slice thinly, drop them in a bowl with the shallot and smother in the dressing while still warm.
Dry fry the sunflower seeds in a pan, til they’re slightly toasted.
Prep the prawns as above. Wrap one slice of bacon around the exposed flesh of each prawn. Then skewer each one with a cocktail stick or do three of them together on a longer stick.
Barbecue them or put them under the grill.
Mix the spuds with the lettuce, seeds and celery. Place the prawns on top. Sprinkle with chives on the whole dish. Serve with a bloody mary.
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