WHAT WENT WRONG????? Part II: The Trout Disaster
Will someone tell me why this was so nasty? It was conceptually so perfect!
- First, I browned some bacon and garlic and shallots.
- Then I took 'em out of the pan and fried a fresh trout filet in the bacon fat + some olive oil. GOOD SO FAR, RIGHT? Please note that already at this juncture something started to smell like burrito night in a pig pen. But I soldiered on.
- Then I added some fresh spinach, which wilted perfectly in the heat, atop my happily frying trout, and then I dumped the bacon and shit from step one back in the pan. GOOD THINKING, RIGHT?
I recognized that the acrid fart-waft had only become worse, but like a WASP pretending an awkward moment isn't akward, I hummed happily and popped my stinky crap into tupperware for tomorrow's lunch.
As the clock struck noon the next day, I stretched, pulled away from my computer and whipped out my lunch. "I'm so industrious and thrifty! Healthy fish! Bag lunch!" were my thoughts as I tucked a napkin into my collar and rolled up the sleeves of my mannish officewear.
I opened the tupperware and something that I can only describe as a cousin of gasoline with some definite nail polish remover and possibly burning trash somewhere back in its lineage. It stung my eyes, even behind my enormous red-framed 1989 government-employee glasses.
WHY? Fresh fish, fresh spinach, fresh garlic. Fresh...well the bacon was old, but does bacon rot? isn't bacon a preservative? WAS IT ROTTEN BACON? I called Matty, my boyfriend, who is a cook.
"Babe, you know that bacon in the fridge?" I asked.
"Yeah, I just finished it."
"Well it was rotten"
"Bacon doesn't rot."
"It made my fish taste bad. I really think it was rotten."
"Babe, it's just really, really smoked."
I hung up.
Has anyone ever had experience with bacon that is sooooooo smoked that it tastes like sphincter dipped in gasoline? Or does bacon rot? Or am I just the world's officially WORST cook and it's a known fact among the informed that bacon and trout interact like bleach and ammonia to form a deadly gas? I'm confused.
posted by Jules @ 12:40 PM
5 Comments:
bacon rots. at least mine has--it gets kind of sweet smelling in the bad way that ham also does. beware. also I have heated garlic the wrong way and had it come out chemical and funky, so maybe there was some kind of freak chemical marriage like CO7 with a negatively charged hydorglyceride and pooopie! you've got rank shitcrap.
wait, that was my comment but i forgot to put my name up. encore une fois.
bacon rots. at least mine has--it gets kind of sweet smelling in the bad way that ham also does. beware. also I have heated garlic the wrong way and had it come out chemical and funky, so maybe there was some kind of freak chemical marriage like CO7 with a negatively charged hydorglyceride and pooopie! you've got rank shitcrap.
YAAAY! it's my lucky day. Not only did Caroline Frost read my blog, she actually answered my question! Next time maybe she can tickle my fanny whilst tying my shoelaces! Delightful, practical, and "sexmeow," CF continues to rule my tiny, arterially-scarred heart.
Aw, Beans, it perhaps is the rancid bacon fat that pooted, but why on Earth would one contemplate mixing delicates such as trout and spinach with Very Old Mr. Bacon unless you were wanting nicotine stains in your underwear?
Honestly, or perhaps not so dishonesty, fresh bacon is best used because the refrigerator is typcially contaminated enough to be a Superfund site unless you bleach it every week with sodium hypochlorite (Clorox will do). So while Mr. Bacon uncut lasts for years in the rafters of Southern Spain - the best illegal lean black pig anywhere in the world - it lasts only for a few nanosenconds in the fridge.
You're in New York and we're not, so for us Boar's Head is as good as Mr. Bacon gets. Why, we just had "Diablos" which are roasted mild jalapeno, oysters, and Mr. Bacon, all brought together with lime juice and a toothpick on each half shell of the mild green pepper. Narry a trumpet blast of indigestion, may I add. So sorry,
Sam
Republic of South Padre Island
You know what I realized? SMOKED bacon is totally wrong for fish; trout and bacon are a classic combination, but only cured, not smoked, bacon. DUH. I am the worst.
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