The Hungry Belgian

“What shall we do with all of this bacon?”, said no one in my family ever. With a constant flux of at least 3 packages of bacon in our small apartment fridge, we embrace ‘Emergency Bacon Preparedness’… You know, for those nights on which you don’t feel like shopping for dinner groceries, but you don’t feel like pizza either?

Bacon is a drug hearty. It makes everything 10x better than it already is. And let’s admit, if there is any processed meat that could potentially be conceived as candy by your taste buds, it would be the crunchy sweetness of salty bacon. No? So when I won a $75.00 gift certificate of the LA Farmers Market during an industry event a few months ago, I knew exactly where I was going to spend the bulk of it: ‘Huntington Meats’. Just like so many small family-owned businesses in this Mecca of deliciousness, the folks at ‘Huntington Meats’ take great pride in their butcher’s craft. Besides the tasty quality of their meats, there’s something eerily familiar about an apron-wearing, fat-bellied man presenting me with a brown paper slab of house-cured & hand-crafted peppered bacon.
I regret that corporate America is slowly but surely edging out small businesses like this. Personally, I enjoy buying meat from a rosy-cheeked butcher, or seafood from a charming blue-tiled monger that smells a wee bit salty and beckons passers-by with a giant neon-flickering smiling mussel. Places like that make me happy. The people who own these types of stores, take pride in their craft and life’s work, and somehow they make me feel like I matter.

When I was younger and still lived in Belgium, these are the kind of places my mother would take us to on her weekly Saturday morning grocery runs. We’d be hectically crisscrossing all over town in her old Ford, and loading up the car with freshly baked pastries & bread from the sweet smelling bakery on the corner of our street or we’d stop by the smelly cheese shop and pick out the finest Cabrales or Brie to eat with our crusty French bread… Wherever we went, everything was freshly sliced, diced, cured, chopped and/or packaged… with love. We had a grocery store nearby, but mom considered that to be mostly for non-perishable stuff. Like peanuts, cat food and laundry soap.

The LA Farmers Market brings this community-minded way of grocery shopping back. If you haven’t been, you urgently have to plan a vacation around this place. Tucked away next to a fancy, overprized open-air mall, the market itself is surprisingly humble and quaint. And none of the boobs Gucci-clad ditsies with electric pink patent leather Hermès handbags actually shop here, for reasons unbeknownst to me because this place truly offers the finest foods in the county. The bustling, colorful market is a bit overwhelming at first sight, but once you get passed the crowded chaos and ‘see’ the vintage appeal of the mint green colored plastic picnic tables, you’ll feel like you’re in foodie heaven.

With so many fabulous eateries, ranging from hot Brazilian roasted meats to Spanish tapas and spicy N’awlins drunken shrimp, you’re in for a real treat. And with most meals being under $10.00, you can splurge and eat your belly full without breaking the bank. Finally, there are the handful of purveyors of fine foods, my favorites being a toss up between ‘Tusquellas Seafood’ and ‘Huntington Meats’… Last Saturday, I walked away from the latter with just a little over 2 pounds of house-cured peppered bacon and 12 hot Italian sausages for nary $38 and change.

So what I am doing with all of this bacon? How about some cheesy brioche rolls now that soup season is officially open?

CHEESY BRIOCHE ROLLS WITH BACON & ROSEMARY
(Adapted from a recipe for French ‘pistolets’)
– 1 lbs of bread flour, sifted
– 5 eggs, beaten + 1 more for the egg wash
– 5-6 slices of bacon (or more)
– 1.5 oz of fresh yeast or 1 packet of dry yeast
– 1/2 cup of whole or 2% milk
– 1/3 cup of finely chopped fresh rosemary
– 1 cup of freshly grated Parmesan
– 1 Tbsp of sugar
– 1 tsp of sea salt
– 1 tsp of baking powder

Preheat oven to 400F.

Crumble yeast into a small bowl, add sugar & lukewarm milk and stir until dissolved. Set aside for 15 min while you cook the bacon.

Slice bacon into thin strips and sauté over medium heat until cooked through but not crispy. Reserve 1-2 Tbsp of the fat, then drain fat and set aside to cool.

Sift flour into large bowl, add the baking powder, add eggs, salt and foamy yeast mixture, and stir or knead into a doughy consistency. Add in reserved bacon, bacon fat, Parmesan and rosemary, and knead 10-15 min. (tip: you can do this on the ‘dough’ setting of your bread maker!)

Place dough in a lightly greased warm bowl, cover with a clean towel and allow to rise in a warm, draft-free place for at least 90 min or longer, until practically doubled in size.

Flour a clean surface. Tip dough out of the bowl, and knead for another 15 min or so. Divide dough in even balls the size of a small apple, and space apart on a lined baking sheet or place in a greased muffin tin. Cover with a clean, damp towel and allow to rise a bit more over 20 min.

Brush rolls with a quick egg wash made out of 1 beaten egg and a splash of water. This will make them shiny. Bake rolls for 20-30 min, until golden brown and crusty on the outside.

Tags: bacon, bread, dinner rolls, herbed, rolls, rosemary, savory