Farm Fire Bacon Blunder - Farmer Mary Field Notes (Week 43)

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This Week's Recipe

Ok, recipe first this week, because it leads to the ridiculous story. I knew the minute I saw the figs in the Costco produce section that I was going to make this dish, and that I wanted to share it with you. I’ve probably been making this recipe for almost 20 years, but I make it so rarely because fresh figs are hard to come by! It’s a pasta with figs, rosemary, toasted breadcrumbs, and it should have pancetta, but I didn’t have any, so I made it with bacon. I went looking for the real recipe so I could share it with you, and it actually took a couple tries to find--does this mean I’m old? Hmm. At any rate, it comes from Epicurious, published August 20, 2004, so an oldie but a goodie. All credit for this deliciousness goes to Epicurious, and I’ll share my tweaks and shortcuts with you:

Egg Fettucine with Figs, Rosemary, and Pancetta

Ingredients:

• Fresh Figs: 1 pound (450 g), trimmed and quartered
• Fresh Rosemary: 1 tablespoon (15 g), finely chopped
• Pancetta or Prosciutto: 6 ounces (170 g), sliced
• Breadcrumbs: 1 cup (100 g), preferably fresh
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil: 4 tablespoons (60 ml)
• Garlic: 1 medium clove, minced
• Butter: 4 tablespoons (57 g), unsalted, cubed
• Pasta: 1 pound (450 g) dried fettuccine or rigatoni
• Lemon Juice: 2 tablespoons (30 ml), fresh
• Lemon Zest: 1 tablespoon (5 g), finely grated
• Parmigiano Reggiano: 1/4 cup (25 g), freshly grated, plus more for serving
• Kosher Salt and Freshly Ground Black Pepper: To taste

Instructions:

1. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. While the water heats, tear the bread into chunks and pulse in a food processor until it forms coarse crumbs.
2. Heat 2 tablespoons of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the breadcrumbs and cook, stirring constantly, until golden brown and crisp, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a small bowl and set aside.
3. In the same skillet, heat the remaining 2 tablespoons of olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the pancetta or prosciutto and cook, stirring, until golden brown and crisp, about 5 minutes. Transfer to paper towels to drain.
4. Add the garlic and rosemary to the skillet with the pancetta fat. Cook over medium heat, stirring, for 1 minute until fragrant.
5. Add the figs to the skillet and cook gently over low heat, turning carefully, for about 2 minutes until coated in the garlic oil. Sprinkle with lemon zest, salt, and pepper, and stir gently to combine. Keep warm.
6. Cook the pasta in the boiling salted water until al dente, following package directions. Reserve 1 cup of cooking water before draining the pasta.
7. Toss the cooked pasta with the lemon juice and half the reserved cooking water in the empty pasta pot.
8. Pour the fig mixture on top of the pasta. Add the cubed butter and toss gently over low heat until the butter has melted and the pasta and figs are well-combined. Add more cooking water as necessary to keep the mixture moist but not wet.
9. Transfer half the pasta mixture to a serving dish, sprinkle half the toasted crumb mixture on top, cover with the remaining pasta mixture, and top with the remaining crumbs.
10. Generously cover with Parmigiano Reggiano and serve immediately.

Hah. Ok, so I do modify a lot. I completely forgot that there was lemon zest in there. I also swapped the pancetta for bacon, diced up and cooked the same as the pancetta, then most of the fat removed from the pan. I swap the pasta water for chicken broth or bone broth for some extra flavor. (Yes, it does make a looser sauce without the starch from the pasta water, but if you let it reduce a bit before you put in the figs, you can get away with it. I used a basil infused olive oil for the breadcrumbs this time around, and it was fantastic. On the topic of breadcrumbs, the kids ate all the bread in the house, so I ended up using panko breadcrumbs, and they still turned out tasty. Just watch those suckers obsessively while they’re toasting, and don’t stop stirring. They’ll go from pale to burnt in a nanosecond. For all of the different steps and the unusual ingredients, this one is worth a try. It is a delightfully light but comforting dish, and it fits perfectly for these just-barely-fall days that start out cool and end up blazing hot. 

It’s been fun thinking about which recipes to include for the blog, and I often end up drafting the content while I’m standing at the stove. Naturally, for this one I was thinking about figs, and how I could dive into how they grow, and the different varieties, and the role of wasps…and then I realized, no. What I actually need to tell you is the bacon story, and I how I can’t make bacon without thinking about it.

The Infamous Bacon Story

Maybe two years ago, I was standing at the stove, making another pasta dish with bacon (it’s lovely–creamy, garlicky; I’ll share that one eventually). My sister-in-law and her family were in town, and I was running way behind on getting dinner made. I was so focused on the timing that I didn’t turn on the vent hood, and I looked up only when the smoke alarm starting blaring its unhappiness at the smoky bacon in the pan. 

Now, it’s worth mentioning that our smoke detector is wired into our security system and it’s all networked, so not only is every alarm in the house screaming, now the security system app on my phone is alerting me, too. I fumble the phone, open the app, punch buttons to stop the alarm, and open some windows. Embarrassing, but whatever. I continue rushing around the kitchen, prepping the rest of dinner, and as I’m throwing dishes in the sink, I happen to look out the window. Now, this window faces out across a valley to one of the main roads. Thanks to the open window, I can hear…sirens. Oh, look, two fire trucks. Oh, no. And then the sirens come closer. And then I can hear trucks on the road below the house. And then I start running for the door. That lovely integrated security system? Apparently I only silenced the alarm, I didn’t actually stop it, and those two fire trucks were headed for my driveway. 

I booked it down the driveway as fast as my Converse would carry me (yes, I turned off the stove), and waved down the trucks at my in-laws’ house. To my complete embarrassment, they hop out, completely turned out in their gear and ready for the fire. So I fell on my sword and told them I’d burned the bacon, and about the security system, the whole thing. And then John’s family starts spilling out of my in-laws’ house and there is chatter and laughing and storytelling, and I wanted to crawl under the shiny red firetruck and hide. We live in the middle of nowhere, so this is a volunteer fire department, and they had to drive to the station from wherever they had been, and THEN drive to my house, also in the middle of nowhere. All for some smoky bacon. It’s been at least two years, and I still get overheated and panicky just thinking about it. 

Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. John bursts in the door, stories to tell. He’d been chatting with a neighbor, and it was decided that he and Ez should join the local volunteer fire department. It would be a great experience for Ez, and John had always wanted to get involved. Can you see where this is going, yet? So they start going to weekly meetings, helping out, and the first of a series of spaghetti dinners was coming up, so of course we planned to attend. 

The dinner was great–the local FFA kids were doing the serving and cleanup, Ez ate his weight in spaghetti, and we got to see a bunch of neighbors and folks we knew from church. And then the fire chief casually introduces me to one of the fire fighters, and as he shakes my hand, he reminds me, “We’ve met” with a huge grin. Oh yeah. He was one of the guys that responded to the bacon incident. I am never, ever, going to live this down. I am the bacon lady. Here’s the thing, though, I can’t decide if it’s worse to be the bacon lady in the first place, or that they think I actually burned the bacon, when all I really did was let it get too smoky in the kitchen. Ultimately, I’m not sure it matters. Here’s the moral of the story. The lesson? Advice? When you live in a very, very small town, don’t burn the bacon. Or, at least, make sure you’re on the call list for your security system. John was in meetings and ignored the calls from the company, and somehow I wasn’t even on the list to get a call. (I promise, I’ve made him double- and triple-check that I’m on it now.) Want to soften the blow for me? Have you ever had anything like this happen? Tell me in the comments and we can commiserate! 

I wish you a wonderful, smoke-free week. Thanks for joining me!