Cooking the books: Bacon The Cookbook by Niamh Shields

Bacon The Cookbook by Niamh Shields (aka Eat like a girl) was a resounding winner for this month’s cooking the books with well over half of you choosing it over the other two books on offer. I was secretly pleased as it’s a book that Niamh has self-published and I’d been looking forward to receiving my pre-ordered copy for quite some time.

As the title suggests, this is a book full of bacon recipes. And I’ll repeat that. This book is full of bacon recipes. I am in love!

Quick recap

Cooking the books is something I came up with to try and make better use of my huge collection of cookbooks. The concept is simple – every month I ask my social media followers to vote for one of three books from my collection. I write a review of the chosen book and select a something at random to make. Although, during the pandemic, and certainly during lockdown, I’ve been trying to choose recipes less at random and more by what doesn’t involve excess shopping trips and makes use of ingredients I have in where possible!

Bacon The Cookbook

This is a book written in passion and published through perseverance. Niamh has spoken before about the fact that she’s pulled this together herself, without a publisher. It’s a bright book full of fun photographs (spot the piggies) and a surprisingly broad selection of recipes. And those recipes cover streaky bacon through to bacon chops too so don’t think you need to stick to your standard Saturday morning packet of back bacon! No way.

There are classics you’d expect such as bacon mac n cheese and brunch items like bacon and egg breakfast tacos but there are also recipes which you might not have thought of before. Bacon ribs, cornbread with jalapēno bacon beans and beer battered bacon with chipotle mayonnaise. But the most exciting thing for me is the section on sweet dishes. Candied maple bacon (and variations) form the base to several amazing looking items such as brownies, fudge, peanut brittle and flapjacks. Whilst I usually gravitate away from desserts, that mix of sweet, salty and savoury really does float my boat!

I have Niamh’s first cookbook too (Comfort & Spice) and have long been a fan of her recipes. They’re straightforward, they make sense. Her writing style is enticing but not complicated. There are recipes of hers that I make again and again so when I heard about this book, I knew I had to get a copy. Clearly, as this glowing review suggests, I was not dissappointed.

Maple candied bacon

Obviously I chose to go for something quite far out there for my first recipe from the book! Less chosen and random and more what took my fancy! So I started by making the maple candied bacon which is incredibly simple. If you’ve never had candied bacon, it’s a revelation. The recipe makes 12 rashers and a lot of those were eaten as they are, but we made sure to save some for the candied bacon flapjacks which I made the next day. The kitchen smelt incredible – smoky sweet – and the flavour is reminiscent of bonfire toffee. Yum!

I have to give a quick shout out to Rare butchers in Southville (Bristol) for the most stunning oak smoked streaky bacon. I’m convinced that this made all the difference to just how wonderful the candied bacon flavour turned out. If you find yourself in Bristol, definitely give them a visit.

I feel like the flapjacks shouldn’t work, but they really do. Incredibly well. With oats, butter, maple syrup and other goodies, they were always going to be delicious but honestly, those pieces of rich fudgy, smoky, sweet and salty bacon elevate them to another level. We’ve eaten the lot in three days but I’ve promised to make another batch and post them to my step dad.

This book had a small print run but I believe there are still some available. It retails at £25 and you can grab a copy here.  For more recipes from Niamh, you can also check out her blog Eat like a girl.

Coming up next month…

Look out on instagram for the next cooking the books selection (including one brand new book and a couple of oldies) and vote to decide what I cook and review next!