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Monday, March 29, 2010

Recipes: Blue Cheese, Bacon, and Onion Salad Dressing or Dip

Just look at the ingredients—what's not to like?

Ingredient Quantity
Bacon 5 strips, about 70 g uncooked
Danish blue cheese 200 g
Mayonnaise 175 g
Sour cream 90 ml
Green onion 1 medium
White vinegar 1/2 tsp
Lemon juice 1/2 tsp
Garlic powder 1/2 tsp
Ground mustard 1/4 tsp
Salt 1/8 tsp

Fry the bacon in a skillet until crisp. Remove each strip, let drip into the skillet, then drain on a plate covered by two thicknesses of paper towel, patting with a paper towel from the top. Leave to drain, keeping the bacon fat in the skillet.

Mix vinegar, lemon juice, garlic powder, ground mustard, and salt in a small casserole dish with a cover. Stir with a spoon until well mixed and the powders begin to dissolve.

Clean the green onion (cutting off the roots, gnarly parts of the green ends, and stripping the outside layer if dirty or drying out), slice into 0.5 cm slices, then chop into bits. Set aside.

Add the mayonnaise (mayonnaise made with olive oil is best if you can get it) and sour cream (half-fat is fine, although given what else is in this recipe, it hardly makes any difference), and the bacon fat from the skillet to the casserole. Blend with an electric mixer or energetically by hand until it's well mixed. If you use a mixer, be sure to pause occasionally and scrape the edges and bottom of the dish with a spoon to mix in stuff the mixer doesn't get to.

Add the blue cheese to the mixture, then chop into medium sized pieces with a spoon (or, alternatively, crumble it by hand into the bowl; if the cheese is gooey in texture, chopping works better). Blend into the mixture until the pieces are broken up and evenly mixed. If you prefer a chunky texture, stop short of this point.

Place the strips of bacon in the casserole and chop into bits with a spoon, then blend into the mix, again scraping the edges and sides once or twice. Finally, add the chopped onion and stir it in with a spoon.

(Now here's the hardest part.) Cover and place in the refrigerator for 24 hours to allow the flavours to blend together. Stir thoroughly before serving the next day. Be sure to dispose of the greasy paper towels in a fire-safe way.

This recipe yields an extremely thick sauce, especially when refrigerated. If you prefer something thinner, blend in whole milk to obtain the desired consistency. When using it as a salad dressing, put a glop on top of the salad 15 minutes or so before serving; this will let it warm up and soften before tossing the salad. Besides, it's better at room temperature.

This Open Sauce™ recipe is under development. If you have any suggestions or comments after having tried this concoction, that's why there's a Feedback button. If you prefer a pure blue cheese dressing, see SubMarie's.

Posted at 00:14 Permalink