Bun Cha At The Beach!

Last weekend I flew to Southern California for my mother's 96th birthday. She still lives in Laguna Beach in the house where I grew up. She's getting frail, but is still sharp mentally. My brother Burt, who lives with her and takes care of her (at 76!) had requested Vietnamese food, so of course I thought bun cha. My sister, Catherine, flew down from Oakland to join us, bravely packing a bottle of precious Three Crabs brand fish sauce in the same bag as her clothes.

I wanted to try some modifications to the bun cha recipe I've evolved, since I get bored cooking the same thing the same way. I decided that I would add some Boise flavor to it by substituting Idaho's wonderful pork jowl bacon for the traditional slices of pork belly.

Pork jowl bacon is a pig's cheek that has been cured and smoked. It comes in a big chunk that still looks just like a cheek and is fattier and richer in flavor than regular bacon. It's not something you'd want to eat every day, but on those occasions you don't mind shortening your life by a year or two, it's a delicious treat.

I have become a big fan of cooking bacon in the oven. The pieces stay flat, the splatter factor 

is negligible, and more of the fat renders out of the finished product.

Said finished product in all its smoky, crispy, fatty glory.

The delightful by-product of the baking process is a bowlful of salty, smoky fat that I save 

for cooking potatoes, eggs, pork chops, chicken, just about anything that might be improved 

by the addition of bacon flavor. Which is just about everything, right?

In this case, I used some of it to fry a couple of chopped leeks whose crispy goodness 

I sprinkled over the top of each bowl.

The result was pretty to look at as well as incredibly flavorful. 

My mom ate every bit of hers and pronounced it a delicious birthday dinner.

P.