There are some things that stick in my craw for a long time. They loiter - in the back of my mind for years, sometimes - until I can't hold back and have to act. One of these things is the combination of bacon and marmalade.
I was a child when I first heard about this. It was my Grandfather who told me. He was a man of peculiar breakfast habits - very morning he ate two boiled eggs, then scraped marmite onto burnt toast with something akin to a plasterer's trowel. He layered the marmite thicker than the toast itself, and the toast was burnt to charcoal. From him I learnt my disdain for those who merely smear their marmite, and acquired a longstanding fear of the sound of toast being scraped.
So my Grandfather claimed that bacon and marmalade was a standard breakfast affair in the Royal Engineers. I had visions of him, out in the field, spooning marmalade over a mess-tin of bacon. Of course, he was in fact stationed in India, where the dish was probably served on a bone-china platter. And ever since then, the bacon and marmalade combination has been in my unusual combination top three:
- Bacon & Marmalade (home made marmalade, of course).
- Marmite & Peanut butter.
- Chips & Ice cream.
It's a tart as riddled with ambiguities as it is a delight to the palate. The bitterness of the marmalade counters the sweetness of the bacon, and the smokiness of the bacon lifts the tang of the marmalade. It's savoury, it's sweet, it's sharp, smoky, and everything about it which should be wrong is right.
It could be for breakfast. It could be for tea. It makes a good lunch, or a passable dessert.
It's made quite simply - and quite wrongly - with puff pastry. Recipes for which are unnecessarily diverse. The quick version takes less than half an hour. The proper route takes a good two or three. Fergus Henderson's version, of course, takes a couple of days. His recipes are challenges to perseverance as much as they are to skill. My tarts follow Henderson; it was a long weekend.
The bacon is diced and fried off - almost to a crisp, but not quite. When doing this, don't throw away the rinds. They join my top three things you should keep until the missus chucks them out:
- Bacon rinds (fat, flavour or snacks).
- Parmesan crusts (richness in soups or cheese sauce).
- Limp vegetables (pickles, and stocks).
The marmalade is melted, and mixed with the bacon. Plumped into the tarts, and baked. A spoonful of Mascarpone is added half way through baking. During which time the puff pastry, all being welll, vacates the tray and turns the tarts into something resembling a sea creature. You'll want the marmalade and bacon juices spilling out, crisping and caramelising.
And there they are. So wrong, and so right. Not even tartlike in demeanour, but fantastic to eat. The Bacon and Marmalade Tart - my work here is done.
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