The main course for our Eastover celebration was this bacon-wrapped halibut and I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out. I had originally wanted to serve local trout but there was none to be had. Those few days of exceedingly warm temperatures had me (and many of my plants) fooled into thinking spring had actually arrived, but the sad reality is that it's been dropping to the 20s at night. G is outside right now building two new raised beds and we're itching to start planting...but I digress. I arrived at the fish market last week, firmly intending to buy 17 whole branzini (sea bass), but changed my mind when I realized how much work that would be for some of my guests. Instead, I came away with two enormous, thick and gorgeous wild-caught Pacific halibut filets. (Need to know which fish are sustainable and thus a better choice? Go here.) My plan was to wrap them in bacon and roast them in the oven.
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Bacon for breakfast is a treat. Not an everyday thing, but especially welcome when there's a day of gardening ahead, or something more strenuous than sitting in front of the computer. Crisp, smoky, salty, sweet and finger-lickin' good, bacon is damn near irresistible. (Especially if you know for a fact that it doesn't come from a pig raised in misery on a feed lot.) And boy does it go well with corn. Corn, bacon and avocado salad. Corn pudding with bacon. Cornbread with crispy pork cracklings. After last week's rather esoteric grits posting that involved draining and drying your grits before eating, I thought it might be a good idea to share a recipe that's a little less involved. I was ordering buckwheat and brown rice flours from Anson Mills to do some gluten-free baking, and I also picked up a bag of their coarse-ground Pencil Cob brits—so-called for the very slim corn cob. I simply boiled them with water, stirred in a little cream, some sharp cheddar and a handful of minced jalapeño and there was breakfast. A couple of slices of bacon fried to perfection and it became a breakfast of champions. So if you were daunted by my purple Forbidden Rice grits, these should send you racing to the stove.
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