Recipe: Bacon Burnt Ends! (and a little begging)

Baconfest Chicago is coming up in April, and the festivities include an amateur bacon cookoff. I entered with a dish that takes bacon and makes it into barbecue: Bacon Burnt Ends. Slab bacon, coated with a barbecue rub, smoked for hours, and then tossed with a tangy glaze. Like brisket burnt ends, the end result is an intense experience, smoky and spicy, fatty and delicious. Unlike brisket burnt ends, Bacon Burnt Ends are made from bacon, and that makes all the difference in the world.

Before I get to the recipe, I have to beg a little bit: I could use your votes to help get to the finals of the cookoff. Just look for my name, Chuck Falzone, in the poll at the bottom of this page. Thanks!

So here's the recipe:

1 lb. slab (i.e. unsliced) bacon, rind removed
Yellow mustard

For the spice rub:

20g kosher salt
10g black pepper
7g brown sugar
16g paprika
6g ground ancho pepper*
6g ground guajillo pepper*
pinch ground cayenne pepper (to taste, or leave it out; I put in less than a quarter tsp.)*
8 g coriander seeds, toasted briefly in a hot pan ('til you can begin to smell them), then ground
2 tsp. dried sage
1 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. garlic powder
(This makes quite a bit more rub than you'll need for this recipe; use the extra for other barbecuing. And I know, I'm mixing weight and volume measures. I prefer weights, but the last few ingredients are too light for my scale to deal with well.)

For the glaze:

2 oz. brown sugar
1 oz. bacon drippings
2 Tbsp. cider vinegar
1 Tbsp. spicy brown mustard
2 tsp. fish sauce
1 tsp. paprika
1 tsp. ground ancho pepper*
1 tsp. ground guajillo pepper*
pinch ground cayenne pepper (to taste, or leave it out)*

Combine all the spice rub ingredients and mix well. Cut the bacon into two half-pound pieces. Coat them with a thin layer of yellow mustard, then lay on a generous coating of spice rub on all sides of the bacon.

Place the bacon in a 200°F smoker, using hickory for the smoke, until the internal temperature of the bacon reaches 180°. (Around 4 hours).

While the bacon is smoking, prepare the glaze. Melt the bacon drippings in a small saucepan over low heat. Add the other glaze ingredients and whisk to combine. Cook, stirring now and then, until the sugar is completely dissolved, then turn off the heat. Heat it back up over low heat when the bacon is close to ready.

When the bacon hits 180°, remove it from the smoker and immediately cut it into one inch cubes. Toss the cubes with the glaze and serve right away.

*A note on chiles: I use ground chiles from The Spice House; their Ancho has no heat at all and their Guajillo is very mild, so all the heat is coming from the Cayenne. So leave it out or adjust the amount up or down as you like. As written, it’s just a little tingle, but probably a bit much for kids.

Pics!

They're definitely photogenic. Nice pics!

congrats on making it to the top 5!!

Thanks!

Looks yummy! Voted!