A brief but stern reminder to fry your eggs in bacon grease Don’t you discard that leftover grease! Don’t you dare!

the take out ^ | 8/85/21

[mylife]

A few weeks ago, I joined my good friend Cara for an evening of bacon, eggs, and Night Mimosas (mimosas consumed, perhaps trashily, after 7 p.m.). We were celebrating a bit of good news the way all distinguished ladies do: by eating breakfast for dinner.

After Cara fried up the bacon and sloshed out a few Night Mimosas, I volunteered for egg-frying duty. I sidled up to her skillet, which was, to my delight, full of rapidly hardening bacon grease. Cara apologized and offered to wash out the skillet. I looked her dead in the eye, shook my head slowly, and cracked five eggs directly into the pan. She watched wide-eyed as I spent the next five minutes slugging a Night Mimosa and flinging grease over the tops of the eggs. The result: five perfect eggs with runny yolks, lacy edges, little crispy brown bits up top, and perfectly pillowy whites.

Cara was stunned. She had never seen anyone baste an egg in bacon grease. This concerned me, as I had always assumed bacon-basting was a common practice. It’s my preferred egg variation; my mom does it, and her mom did it before her. But I realize now that not all families engage in reckless full-fat cooking for three meals a day, seven days a week. If, like Cara, you grew up in a low-to-moderate-fat household, this is my plea: start frying up your eggs in bacon fat. You won’t regret it.

[rlmorel]

I only have one, but I want a really big one now...I want to try Maryland Fried Chicken in it the way my mom used to do it!

Yes, it is nearly as good as teflon if you have it seasoned correctly...:)

I just love the way they retain heat and cook so evenly.

[metmom]

Now you’re going to be every FReepers best friend.

[caww]

I’m a bacon lover. Cook it up at night for a snack even. Love to caramelize it also with maple syrup.....and that’s great for wrapping meatloaf.

[AlaskaErik]

yer doing it wrong and yer microwave must be a mess

It works for me. And I do cover the bacon with a paper towel and I also have a paper towel underneath the bacon, so the microwave is actually quite clean. I cook the eggs while the bacon is microwaving, so both are done at the same time.

[caww]

Have you ever prepared Wilted Lettuce Salad using bacon Grease? ...Delightful!

[mylife]

what you cook in them seasons them, potatoes dont mind either pan

[Albion Wilde]

Bonus, if you spray it on neighbors dog poop in your yard it will be gone in a day.

That post right there is an example of why I love FR.

[lizma2]

That sounds wonderful.

My Dad made the best hard tacos. He fried them in lard.

When I turn 80 I’m adding lard to my diet!

[telescope115]

What I love about cast iron is that it’s indestructible. I think one could drive an 18 wheeler over it. Go ahead, use a metal spatula and put some weight into it, abuse the hell out of it. Mine is gonna outlive me, for sure.🙂
And it could make a handy dandy closed quarters weapon.

[lizma2]

“Taste a pie dough made with lard versus one with polyunsaturated and your taste buds will revolt at the latter!”

About 15 years ago I bought lard for a special occasion pie crust. It was amazing.

But I could only find lard in a 1/2 gallon tub. Had I several months of fantastic food.

[Tacrolimus1mg]

My dog loves it on her food. It’s why she’s pudgy, though being a Boxer/AmStaff mix doesn’t help. :x

[Albion Wilde]

I’ve read about the basting thing where you ladle hot fat onto the yolk, but I’ve never done it, and I’ve never really felt the need to. Seems just a little too foodie-ish to me.

Foodie-ish? It is pure frontier-Amurrican cookin.'

It's harder to do for one or two people than it was in the days when all families had at least 4 and sometimes 12 or more to cook for. But what my Depression-era grandma and my mom and dad used to do was cook the bacon first in a cast-iron skillet, then break the egg(s) into it, and when the egg white has turned opaque around the edges, use a potholder and take the pan by the handle and tilt it. This way the bacon fat forms a pool at the low end of the skillet, which makes it easier for you to dip up three or four soupspoons full at a time to pour over the egg until the yolk develops a delicate white veil. Soooo good.

[Albion Wilde]

only bacon could make Brussel sprouts yummy ;)

For me, it's Brussels sprouts with butter and parmesan cheese, and maybe a sprinkle of nutmeg.

[blam]

"I was stunned when my young wife would pour it down the drain"

That's one of the worst things you can do to drains. You' ll regret it.

[Albion Wilde]

Ate the yolks and ate the fat on the steaks.

The best fat I remember from childhood was the fat around the pork chops. It just doesn't taste the same any more, since they have literally been breeding pigs to be less fatty because of the craze of anti-fat complaints. I loved it so much that I would volunteer to clear the table so I could search for any uneaten bits of browned fat clinging to the bones on my family's plates.

[MayflowerMadam]

“At what years was this?”

I was born in ‘48 and Dad said it had been in the farmhouse as long as he could remember. Grandpa sold the place in the late ‘60s and it was still there.

And the only water in the kitchen was out of a faucet connected to a spring. It ran 24/7 into a big bucket in an old sink. It was always COLD and wonderful.

[M1903A1]

Efficient in the morning, and good for an egg banjo at 0-dark-godawful while trying to get something done....

[Vigilant1]

My grandmother made bacon and then made eggs in the grease every day of her life since she was old enough to cook. She died six weeks before her 100th birthday.

[Conservative4Life]

Introduced my wife to ‘cooking with bacon’ early on in our relationship. 20 yrs later, we still have jars of bacon grease on the counter. I grew up with baconated cooking.

[Trillian]

There is nothing like ham fried in bacon grease, with the addition of scrambled eggs and covered with a lot of mozzarella. Or.. bacon grease used to make hot dog gravy served over fresh, fluffy pancakes :)