nothing in particular

K found a website describing some 5000 calories dish - The Bacon Explosion some weeks ago and posted this on SGSB forum asking, "Who dares to try this?".

Well it turns out that many forummers are interested in trying it and so we decided to organise a lunch outing at K's place..to share the sin *hiaks*

Preparation started about 3weeks ago when we started buying/sourcing for some of the ingredients. Meanwhile, the menu was evolving too.

The hardest thing to find was thickly sliced bacon. When we finally found that MarketPlace was selling it, we were elated but the cost of thickly sliced bacon is about $15.50 =(
More about cost savings later.

Final Menu:

Salad:
Butterhead with garlic,bacon bits and sesame dressing
Potato with egg, parsley, bacon bits and miracle whip

Mains:
Bacon Explosion
Philly Cheese Football
Meat Loaf

Sides:
Old Chang Kee Curry Puff (from other forummer)
Ngoh Hiang(from other forummer)
Self Made Baguette
Buffalo Wings (sauce placed separately)
Desserts:
White Wine Grape Jelly
Matcha Macaron Shell
Red Wine with 7-Up

Started the preparation of sauces and ingredients one day in advance. With the following schedule:

Event (Sat)		Time (H)
Make Sponge		0700-0800
Shopping + lunch		1000
Pork rub		1230
Marinate Sausage		1300
Marinate Wings		1400
Make cheese + bake bacon		1500
Make Wine Jelly		1530
Toast sesame + pine nuts + walnuts		1600
Make BBQ sauce		1700
Wash butterhead		1800
Boil potatoes		1800
Chop pecan		1800
Shape bread		1900-2000
Dinner		2000

Event (Sun)

Time

Take out bread, sausage and BBQ sauce from fridge

0600-0700

Bake bread + wrap explosion

0800

Boil egg

0930

Smoke Explosion

1000

Make salad dressing (Fry garlic slices)

1000

Make pesto sauce

1030

Take out cheese from fridge

1100

Deep fry chick wings

about 1130

Make wings sauce

about 1230

Crisp Explosion

1245

Coat cheese with pecan nuts

1245

Saturday started at 7.30am for K as he started making his sponge for the baguette.
We met at 8am+ to visit BBMM who went into labour yesterday. She's fine with a little saggy stomach and hungry as usual. But the kittens were hidden elsewhere *hopefully*

Went to get the groceries and headed home at about 12.30pm. w00t on time for now that is.
We started making the sauces and seasonings first.

First seasoning to be done: Marination of sausage.
These are the spices(below) that are to be used for the sausage in the Bacon Explosion dish.
K chose to make the sausage on his own after considering the large amounts of fats and salt in commercial sausages. In the end, 50% minced frozen mutton + 50% pork(shoulder butt) mixture makes up the inside of Bacon Explosion dish.

We had trouble finding "fresh" minced mutton and finally found some frozen ones at MMMM @ Novena Square 2. They are cheap and good, $6 for 500grams of mutton =D

Spices recipe from :http://www.lesleycooks.com/sausage/creole.htm


Lotsa stuff to be finely chopped so Slap Chop comes to the rescue! It only rescued those who had the strength to press the top repeatedly for 2mins or so. In short, it didn't help me -.-'


K marinating the sausage mixture. After marination, refrigerate.



Next Item: BBQ Sauce.
This sauce is to be used inside the Bacon Explosion and to be brushed on the outside as well.
Special ingredients were coffee and tomato paste. Never expected these two items to produce such tasty BBQ sauce lol~



After mixing in coffee and tomato paste(left pic), the sauce was simmered over low heat for 30mins(right pic).


One of the sides: Buffalo Wings
Marinating the chicken wings with rosemary, salt, pepper.


Condiments: Pesto sauce for dipping Baguette
The pesto sauce was made using Thai Basil cos it was much much cheaper.50cts for such a big bunch. K says that the most fragrant part of Basil is its flower.


K picked the good leaves and this is about HALF of the big bunch!


After 30mins, the BBQ sauce has been reduced to a thicker form.


Next dish: Philly Cheese Football
This dish was contributed by another forummer who suggested that it compliments Bacon Explosion really well. Prolly in sin -.-'

Coincidentally, this is also the most expensive dish..about $40+.
Sharp cheddar was really hard to find. It took us several trips to different cold storage/market place/ntuc to find it.

Ingredients include: Miracle whip, sharp cheddar cheese, Parmesan cheese, Philadelphia cream cheese. That's lots of dairy products.


And one more thing, spring onions! *Slurp*


Miracle whip was something new to us. It turns out its mayonnaise without the eggs.


Mix all the cheesy stuff together.


Use a hand whisk and mix till smooth.


Smooth and wrap the Philly Cheese mixture with glad wrap, chill.


Extra dessert: Caneles

I decided to make caneles using the silicon we just bought some weeks ago. This results in leftover egg whites, this means its time to make macarons as well. K found this canele recipe which states that it works best for silicon moulds so why not try it? But the drawback is that, caneles take about 24hours to rest and 1hour plus of baking time so I guess it will be our post-gathering dessert instead.

Non low fat milk, vanilla seeds, egg/egg yolks to be mixed together first.


Other stuffs to be mixed. Includes vanilla seeds+ milk (boiled), flour, butter, sugar.


Good old trusty hand whisk comes in handy. There's the SPAR mixer but its too much work to wash the container -.-'

Chill mixture for 24hours before baking.


Meanwhile, K started arranging the bacon strips on the rack. These bacon strips are baked in advance to remove oil, fats. Now that's alot of BACON.


Finally done after 10mins+, nicely browned.


That's the amount of OIL and FATS from 12pcs of bacon.



Dessert: White wine grape jelly

I slacked till about 7pm before doing the dessert for tomorrow, white wine grape jelly.
Items needed includes sugar, grapes, white wine, gelatin, lemon juice and soda water.


K managed to ransack his cabinets for 6 more glasses. We are making 16 cups of white wine grape jelly.


Clumsy me have one less thumb to work with due to jacket zip zzz~ so K has to open the cork for me.


Monkey Bay White wine @_@


Everything in, now to the fridge!


Delayed my macaron making till 9pm cos.....K was supposed to mill all the nuts/seeds together.
The stuffs needed are just egg whites, sugar, matcha powder and almond powder.

Matcha powder was really expensive, $2 for 20grams and we already used 4.5grams for 23 pcs of macaron shells >=(


Matcha powder was quite hard to mix cos it was sooo dry. But luckily, the mixture still looks glossy and holds its shape.

Except we have a rainy weather today and the macarons were not drying out..fortunately the aircon in the study room managed to dry the macarons within the next half hour.


The finished products. We used lesser baking time this time round which I thought might be a mistake cos they stuck to the paper like nobody's business zzz~


No pics on baguette making cos its just all white dough. At 11pm, K started shaping the baguette for it to ferment overnight in the fridge.

The fridge is bursting at its seams!


To be continued on SUNDAY to be just in time for the gathering...