How to Make... The Perfect Bacon Butty

I feel that perhaps I’m getting myself in for a world of hurt here. But I’m bored and I need some entertainment – so what the hell. I present to all of you people out there – the perfect Bacon Butty…

Now, I should first let you know my credentials for coming up with this butty. First of all, my mother owns her very own butty shop in Oldham. So day in, day out she serves up some rather impressive bacon sarnies to some really rather happy customers – so making bacon butties is in my blood.

Right, let’s stop the waffle and crack on with it yeah?

The Bread

Many people would consider the bacon to be the most important part of the Bacon Butty – but they’re wrong. Very wrong. The bread is just as important as the filling, and if you get this bit wrong – the whole orgasmic experience is ruined.

There are SO many questions to ask when faced with the ‘Bread Dilemma’. Brown or white? Loaf or muffins? Toasted or not toasted? Buttered or dry? Well, you can throw all of those doubts and queries out – because here is the correct answer…

Next time that you’re in a supermarket, or perhaps your local bakery, grab yourself a packet of these – Lancashire Oven Bottomed Muffins. Now, in this whole barm cake, bap, cob debacle us Oldhamers just sit back with a smile on our faces – all because of the Oven Bottomed Muffin.

They’re called muffins and they are the most perfect bread cradle for your bacon. Firm on the outside, fluffy in the middle and always the perfect size for man, woman or child – it’s almost as if this muffin has been genetically engineered solely for use in a Bacon Butty. Perhaps it was.

The Bacon

Right, on to the good stuff. Here in Blighty we seem to truly adore back bacon – with the more popular option over in the USA – streaky – hardly getting a look in.

Personally I always go for smokey streaky bacon, making it dead, dead crispy – however on special occasions nothing beats the sheer meatiness and experience of back.

Head on down to your butchers, or give the guys at Grandad’s Sausages a shout (they’ll deliver it for you), and get as many slices of smoked back bacon as you can afford. A bacon butty is not a bacon butty unless it has at least 3 (full) slices of back bacon on it – but if you can fit more on there – even better.

Cooking

My dear old grandma used to stand in her kitchen in Derker on a Sunday morning from around 6am until 2pm, continuously cooking breakfast as her 14 kids popped in at random times for a bit of scran. The one thing that was always more impressive than this endurance was her bacon-cooking skills.

There’s no other way to cook bacon than in a frying pan. The grill – too healthy and dry, the oven – too long. Anything else (microwave, deep fat fryer, George Foreman) is just sacrilege really.

So get your pan out and get it steaming hot. Now, you don’t need much on there before the bacon goes on because the fat on the rind will do most of the work but add a tiny knob of butter just for good measure. Then lay your bacon on there but, and this is important, DON’T OVERCROWD THE PAN.

If you overcrowd it the bacon will sort of boil instead of fry – so stick to around 3 rashers per pan load – you can always pop them in a little bowl and keep them warm (and to crisp up) in the oven while you finish off the rest.

Your bacon should be well-cooked and crispy – any slices that have that manky, wispy uncooked fat on them should be left for longer.

Once you’ve finished with the bacon, pop it to stay warm in the oven for about a minute or so – but DON’T throw away that bacon fat – you’re going to need that wonderful nectar.

Slice your Oven Bottomed Muffin in half and place the inner sides face-down in the bacon fat drenched pan. It should still be hot enough to give it a slight crisp while the bacon fat seeps into the bread.

DO NOT put the outer parts of the sandwich into the fat – nobody wants to have grease all over their finger while they eat.

Final Additions

As you lay your slices of bacon onto your bread, you’ll naturally be thinking of the final flourishes to the sandwich. Some people like to put some really rather strange additions on there – personally I quite enjoy a handful of sliced pickles when I’m severely hungover – but you should keep it as simple as possible.

So the debate now comes to the sauce. Red or Brown. Well, it’s BROWN. Obviously. Any bottles of red sauce in your house should be thrown straight into the bin and then the bin thrown through a window.