Happy Fourth of July from Seattlest
Seattlest Day Trips to Mount Rainier (in Photos)
Can't Miss It: Weekend Edition July 3-5
Weekend Theatre: July 3-5
Bacon Salt? Seattlest first heard of this a few days ago, but the locally produced vegetarian kosher zero-calorie seasoning salt that tastes just like bacon has been igniting the blogosphere. One of Seattlest's foodie friends let us try some Tuesday night when we were playing trivia.
Our response? "Yummy." His response? Extensive cooking notes, America's Test Kitchen-style. Is Bacon Salt as tasty as it sounds? Read on.
Overall, Bacon Salt is quite good. It produces the flavor and aroma of bacon in the dishes in which I've used it. I'm not disappointed; I'll use it frequently; I don't expect it to last very long; I'll buy more before I run out so I'm not without it. Woot woot and all that.
But if you're looking for a mindblowingly transcendant experience, this isn't it. Despite the crackhead babbling that typically results when people hear of Bacon Salt, the collective tongue of the social overmind, I think, is at least partly in cheek. We know it won't be that good. We may hope, but we know we should stay realistic; this won't really be a life changer. If that's what you actually expect, this will be a letdown. I was expecting a seasoning salt ranging from good to very good; I am impressed that it lands in the upper range of my scale.
The thing is, though, this doesn't provide the total bacon experience. Bacon is about flavor and aroma, but an essential element, in my opinion, is the mouthfeel. The crispness combined with the fine, silky fat is simply luxurious on the tongue and in the mouth. (Really, it's remarkable that so incredible a food should be so widely and cheaply available, and it's sad that so many seem to take it for granted, foodie worship notwithstanding.) Bacon doesn't just taste good and smell good; it feels good.
Bacon Salt doesn't provide that texture, and therefore falls short of achieving ultimate baconosity. (For that, you'll need a recipe containing actual bacon; the Bacon Salt product is vegetarian and kosher certified.) It is, nevertheless, as good as one could reasonably — emphasize reasonably — hope for in a seasoning salt.
Vegetarian and kosher certified? Like artificial bacon bits? Yes, this product strongly resembles a fine-grained version of same, and is probably manufactured in a similar manner. But granting the equivalence, Bacon Salt is far better than any artificial bacon bit product I've ever had. There's a care to the flavor balances I don't get from the ordinary fake stuff. If this is nothing but an artificial bacon bit, it's the best artificial bacon bit I've ever had. This stuff has punch and character. There's real personality here.
Tasting notes, comparing the three varieties: The Peppered style is not markedly more spicy than the Original. There's a bit of pep, but only a bit. I have a very high tolerance for heat so I might not be the best judge here; still, the Peppered and the Original were pretty close together taste-wise, with the Original featuring a touch more sweetness. The Hickory, on the other hand, had a pronounced note of smoke. As such, its cooking applications will be more limited, but it'll be great as a snack salt.
The specific taste tests:
For dinner Saturday, I sauteed garlic, asparagus, and Key West pink shrimp with Bacon Salt (Original variety), then deglazed with white wine, added scallion, and served it over fresh pasta that had been tossed with a little butter mixed with Bacon Salt (same).
For breakfast Sunday and Monday, I made several two-egg scrambles, trying each type of Bacon Salt in varying quantities. Based on Saturday night's attempts to set an appropriate level of seasoning in the pasta, I kept track of the amounts of Bacon Salt in each scramble. I also threw in some parmesan for a "carbonara" echo, and more of the scallion.
Then for dinner Monday, I made a rib-eye steak (America's Test Kitchen method) which I'd rubbed with Bacon Salt (Peppered) and let stand for an hour, pan-roasted potatoes dusted with Bacon Salt and garlic powder, and peas mixed with a Bacon Salt sabayon.
Very simple recipes, with few other seasonings, to let the Bacon Salt speak for itself, and not get masked. The sabayon peas were the most significant exception, testing how the Bacon Salt might behave as a contributing flavor in a more complicated dish instead of as the main taste prop for an ingredient.
Results: delicious. Not, I hasten to add, given the aforementioned crackhead babbling, as good as sex, but delicious nevertheless.
Lessons learned during cooking:
You need to use more than you would if it were just salt. The low-sodium-per-serving measurement noted on the label is not an indication that the seasoning is magically super-powered; it just means you need to use more of it to get the same degree of pop. (I'm not afraid of salt but those who are trying to control their intake should take note.) I needed to add more to the first night's pasta dish while I was eating it to get the right level of zing, both for salt and for baconitude, which is why I followed up with the variations in the eggs, testing measured quantities. The egg scramble with 1/8 teaspoon (Hickory) was pretty bland; the 1/4 teaspoon (Peppered) version was getting there; with 3/8 teaspoon (Original) it was just about right.
Be careful, though: the line between just enough and too much is crossed pretty dramatically. There's no such thing as a little bit too much of this stuff; when you overdo it, it's face-puckeringly powerful, and not in a good way. A two-egg scramble with 1/2 teaspoon of Original was borderline inedible.
Also: Bacon Salt works equally well as the star seasoning (going solo on the steak, shrimp, and asparagus) as it does as a contributor (with garlic on the potatoes, with a bunch of stuff in the sabayon). The one exception I discovered: I put a small splash of truffle oil on one bite of the 3/8-tsp egg dish and found it, with the bacon, to be overpoweringly intense. The sabayon, on the other hand, was utterly divine.
And finally: The flavor can be degraded a fair amount by heat if you add the Bacon Salt too early in the cooking. Plan to add a little more at the end. Also, it can get clumpy if you add it to a liquid ingredient (like stirring it into the raw eggs before cooking), so make sure to whisk thoroughly.
Other than that, the taste testing was a success, and freed the imagination. Some ideas: mixed with hamburger and onion for grilling; in salad dressing; with wilted spinach and butter; in deeply caramelized French onion soup; in the breading of fried chicken; on Brussels sprouts tossed with apple-cider syrup; on bruschetta; in pate; as an element of a slow curing rub, especially for seafood (compare); in duck fried rice; and more.
I suspect it'll prove itself useful as a supporting and unifying element in more complex dishes, and will stand up to powerful flavors; imagine a white pizza (olive oil base, garlic, no tomato sauce, mozzarella and/or ricotta and/or provolone cheeses) with anchovies, roasted red peppers, basil, and Bacon Salt. And if you have a secret family recipe for from-scratch barbecue sauce, I will bet you a public blowjob that no matter how good it is now a careful infusion of Bacon Salt will put it into freaking orbit.
Oh, and as expected, it'll be brilliant on popcorn, french fries, and corn on the cob, no question.
But at the end of the day, it's just a seasoning salt.
Offer of public blowjob may not be valid in your area. Please check local regulations.
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With a littany of ingredients, such as hydrogenated oil (trans fats), and arificial colors and flavors, this product becomes unappetizing in a hurry. Don't need bacon flavor THAT much.
Walter
Oh, NO!!! Not trans fats!!! The horror!!!
(seriously, are the 5 grams contained in the entire bottle going to kill you?)
And did you somehow think a "vegetarian/kosher bacon flavoring" would lack artificial colors and flavors?
I just bought 3 bottles.(S&H doubles after that...)
One for me, one for my bacon loving friend, and one for my muslim friend who has professed to a longing desire to try bacon.
I cannot wait for these to arrive.
As a lover of Bac-Os (I know, I know - I grew up on a Midwestern Diet), this sounds like an invention of the gods. Awesome!
I tried getting this at the Cost Cutter in Everett but they said they have never carried it, but the Bacon Salt web site says that it does, so you might want to check with store before you drive very far.
The checker told me they have had 4 people ask for it, and I needed to talk to the Grocery Manager...
Bacon Salt! Woo! Also, hi.