The Modernist BLT

One of the gifts I received for Christmas was Modernist Cuisine at Home, which is the slightly more affordable version of Nathan Myhrvold's massively encyclopedic treatise on Modernist cooking... a multi volume set that costs somewhere on the order of $500. While I certainly blog about sous vide here, I'm not so awed by foams and spherification that I need the definitive treatise on the subject; the dumbed down n00b version is just fine for me and seems a lot more practical for the nerdy home cook.

The first thing I made from the book was actually pressure cooker marinara sauce, but while it was really quite a good way to make tomato sauce it didn't feel quite epic enough for a blog post. Enter cured sous vide pork belly and bacon mayonnaise assembled into a Modernist BLT sandwich. Yes, that's right, I said bacon mayonnaise.



The pork belly gets a 72 hour brine (with Insta Cure for the pink color) before getting a 36 hour sous vide hot tub treatment, so not exactly something you whip up on a whim... but all that time involves nearly zero work from you, so it's not exactly a difficult process either. What you see above is said pork belly after all those hours of cooking and curing... just briefly browned in a hot skillet. The texture is so tender it's actually pretty surprising, and the cure gives it a flavor that is reminiscent of ham.

The bacon mayo is made by cooking some blended egg yolks sous vide (153 degrees F) for 35 minutes to increase their emulsifying powers (and eliminate salmonella fears)... then you whip in some rendered bacon fat and Xanthan gum to get your emulsification going... before adding crumbled bacon pieces. Because of the Xanthan gum they warned your bacon mayo will solidify when cold, but I didn't find that... in fact, it didn't really obtain the right consistency until it was chilled (it was quite runny when warm). I guess maybe I didn't use enough Xanthan gum? Fractions of a gram aren't something my current scale can measure, so I just did it by eye, and maybe didn't add enough.

The sandwich was quite good and definitely different... dare I say "unique"... and worth making if you are into this kind of thing. I don't suspect curing your own pork belly and making bacon mayo will ever replace the classic original BLT, but it's a cool variant nonetheless.