In February of this year we traveled to Austin, Texas to produce a ‘Creole Foods Of New Orleans’ pop up restaurant party.

We fed 375 guests.

The most labor-intensive dish of the evening was a Creole gumbo enrichened with Vaucresson Sausage, Gulf Oysters and Gulf Shrimp. It took two of our chefs three days to bring this dish into the world.

The eaters of Austin have a fairly hot palate but this gumbo was scorching. It was hotter than we planned and when we set to thinking about why the dish was at the upper levels on the Scoville scale we determined that it was due to the fat we used to make the roux.

Over the course of a month of frying bacon each morning we end up with roughly two cups of bacon fat. This is not your ordinary bacon grease that millions of housewives are producing the world over. We fry jalapenos in ours, drain the excess into a stone jar and save it for future use (eg breakfast tacos and roux).

A Recipe For Jalapeno Infused Bacon Fat

Ingredients
5 strips bacon, use the best you can lay your hands on
1 each Jalapeno, chopped

Method
* Fry bacon in cast-iron pan (we cook ours slowly as we source our bellies from regional farms and the meat is fatty)
* Fry Jalapeno in resultant fat
* Drain fat into jar or other receptacle
* Do this each time you cook bacon

You have now created a fresh oil to add to your cooking arsenal.

Cooking notes
We cook bacon seven days a week and have for years. This creates a lot of left-over fat. Your bacon fat accrual may go at a slower pace. Be patient.

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