Missed my morning bacon and eggs fix, so I figured I'd have them for dinner instead. Also had a left over "baked" potato in the fridge and some salad greens that I figured I should try to use up...
I normally turn to a small cast-iron skillet for the majority of my single serving cooking. It can go from the stove top to oven to under a broiler with ease. I have found that bacon cooks nicely (renders and browns at a reasonable pace) in it on my electric stove-top's "medium" setting. Normally, there is a lot of excess rendered fat left over when I cook bacon. Never throw out this browny/gray gold. I keep a glass jar in the fridge that I add the (strained) excess bacon fat from each time I cook bacon. Aside from being delicious and imparting salty-bacony-goodness into all that it cooks, bacon fat has higher smoke point than olive oil, allowing you to sear things with less risk of filling your kitchen with smoke.
- Started with the baby skillet and added the 3 half slices from the "meaty" side of the bacon (so effectively 1 and 1/2 slices, but literally the "good" half from 3 slices of traditionally cut bacon).
- After I had an ample amount of rendered fat in the pan, I flipped the bacon turned up the heat, and allowed them to completely darken up. After shaking them off in the pan for a couple of seconds, I laid the pieces down on the remaining salad-greens in the fridge hit with balsamic vinegar. The game plan was to have some of the bacon fat mix with the yolk of the egg and the vinegar. You can see my sloppy plating with the bacon fat smeared off to the right side of the egg.
- With the little pool of bacon happiness in my pan, I cut up the potatoes to sear them off. They were already cooked- just need to be re-heated and crisped. Was going to reconstruct the potato after searing, but this proved to be overly-dramatic and not worth the effort
***Hindsight - would have been better to just roughly cut them up so there was more surface area the bacon fat in the pan could crisp and flavor***
- Lastly, I fried 2 eggs in the remaining bacon fat in the pan (oh ya- that much fat in the meaty half-ends of 3 slices of bacon that I was using). I shattered one yolk on impact in the skillet. It flattened and dispersed across the top of its whites and quickly turned into an overcooked monstrosity while the other fried nicely and soon became attached to him. I decided to perform surgery on the conjoined-egg twins, and separated the deformed "older" brother from it's tastier looking sibling. I plated the good looking egg atop my now very crispy bacon, and devoured the aesthetically unappealing egg off camera with the meal. A good fried egg will have at least one crispy caramelized side. I am not a fan of "cooked" egg-yolks- I find their intense fattiness and pasty texture unappealing. Sunny-side up (with firm whites) are how I like them.
Taking all the components in 1 bite- Yummmm.
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