I decided to cook with the French today and found a recipe that I thought would be interesting; grilled veal with mushrooms, shallot compote and scalloped potatoes in bacon cups.
That sounded fine and it was. I especially liked the shallot compote and mushrooms are always good.
The problem was with the bacon cups. The French chef’s idea was to form the bacon into cups in muffin tins, no problem, then add uncooked potato slices, wet with a little chicken broth and then cook in a bain marie (water bath) in the oven for 25 minutes. I took issue; the bacon wouldn’t be crisp and the potatoes uninteresting.
Instead, I wove small bacon mats, put them inside le creuset mini casseroles and cooked them to mid point in the oven, pouring off the accumulated oil. I sliced the potatoes thin and boiled them for 10 minutes in chicken broth with parsley. I then filled the bacon cups with the drained potatoes, added salt, pepper, chopped parsley and a few tiny dots of butter.
Back in the oven for a few minutes to brown the potatoes and crisp the bacon.
And voila!
The rest of the meal was food but these were really cool! I’m thinking breakfast or brunch.
The bacon cups sounds delicious! Great choice. 🙂
Thanks Rachel.
This looks absolutely wonderful! What a great idea to partially cook the bacon!
Thanks Andrea. I was worried about the bacon fat accumulation but I wanted the cups to cook inside of the casseroles, so that I could just add the potatoes and continue.
I’m thinking breakfast, lunch, dinner, afternoon snack, dessert… This is just so wonderful. I’d say you’ve outdone yourself, but you’re so creative I’m just coming to expect excellence!
Thanks Rufus. These were fun to make and you can’t go wrong with bacon!
Wow, those bacon cups look beautiful and delicious! I’m sure that you impressed all your dinner guests with these ;o) I will have to try to make these one day too, thanks for the inspiration!
Thank you. My daughter was very impressed.