Observ@h
Well-known member
Slop incoming! Bacon Black and Cheese from Jack’s blog.
Unlike many of the fascinating fraus I can’t cook. I have no instinct for what might or might not work, whether for flavours or methods. So I was determined to follow the recipe as exactly as possible. I did actually make a “proper” spaghetti carbonara from BBC Good Food last week, which gave me a bit more faith in this strange recipe where the pasta is cooked in the frying pan and the water becomes the sauce.
I chose this because I love black pudding and will use the rest of it, I had a suspicion that this method wouldn’t make the best of it. Read on…
I chose this because I love black pudding and will use the rest of it, I had a suspicion that this method wouldn’t make the best of it. Read on…
When I looked at Jack’s costings they seemed very low so I thought perhaps it was an old recipe. Actually it’s from August 2022. I live out of a Co Op and buy things as I need them, if I buy in bulk stuff gets wasted. So perhaps my individual price items are all expensive. Anyway.
Jack costings
Onion 5p
Pasta 14p
Bacon 15p
Black pudding 55p
Greens 8p
Cheese 53p
Jack’s portion cost is 45p, total cost £1.80
My costings
Onion 3 for £1 = 33p. I must check my onion economy!
Pasta £1.35 for 500g = 27p
Bacon £2.90 for 275g = £1.05. I couldn’t find cooking bacon, used streaky.
Black pudding £1.40 for 220g = 73p
Spinach £1.89 for 200g = 47p mine was fresh not frozen
Cheese £2.55 for 350g = 61p
Total spent £10.42
My total cost £2.42 for 4, portion cost 60p
I didn’t charge for milk, mustard, stock cube. I used fresh milk, not UHT.
Sorry the photos are dark, it was evening and my kitchen isn’t well lit!
Jack costings
Onion 5p
Pasta 14p
Bacon 15p
Black pudding 55p
Greens 8p
Cheese 53p
Jack’s portion cost is 45p, total cost £1.80
My costings
Onion 3 for £1 = 33p. I must check my onion economy!
Pasta £1.35 for 500g = 27p
Bacon £2.90 for 275g = £1.05. I couldn’t find cooking bacon, used streaky.
Black pudding £1.40 for 220g = 73p
Spinach £1.89 for 200g = 47p mine was fresh not frozen
Cheese £2.55 for 350g = 61p
Total spent £10.42
My total cost £2.42 for 4, portion cost 60p
I didn’t charge for milk, mustard, stock cube. I used fresh milk, not UHT.
Sorry the photos are dark, it was evening and my kitchen isn’t well lit!
I started to grate cheese and got worried about how much I would waste, so I only made half the recipe.
As a non cooking Frau, the method was hard to follow and jumped around. It would be so much easier to see “1 onion, finely chopped” in the ingredients instead of getting an onion and then having to page down to see what to do with it. To be fair it’s a blog recipe not a cookbook one.
Jack clearly wanted to save fuel, so you start with onion, oil, bacon and black pudding “tossed” in a cold pan, with plenty of salt and pepper. I never heard of salting and peppering at this stage but what do I know.
I kept strictly to the timings so these ingredients got 4 minutes of heat. It was enough for the bacon and onion but not for the black pudding, which should be crispy.
The next stage is to “swiftly remove the ingredients from the pan with a large spoon or tongs” which indicates they are all in a clump, but they weren’t. I scraped them out and “decanted”. She uses such strange, confusing words.
Then half the water and the pasta go in. Bring to the boil, then add remaining water and stock cube. This is where things got a little strange. I stuck fairly exactly to Jacks timings, with 8 minutes to boil the pasta. The pasta was just under al dente after that time - but I was making half the quantity. So I suspect that with the full quantity the pasta wouldn’t have cooked. It wouldn’t be the end of the world to cook it for longer, but the point of this recipe is how little fuel you need to cook it, and that part doesn’t really hold true.
After the pasta is cooked, the heat goes off and milk and bacon/onion/black pudding go back in to “warm through” in the pan. It did not look enormously appetising at this stage.
As a non cooking Frau, the method was hard to follow and jumped around. It would be so much easier to see “1 onion, finely chopped” in the ingredients instead of getting an onion and then having to page down to see what to do with it. To be fair it’s a blog recipe not a cookbook one.
Jack clearly wanted to save fuel, so you start with onion, oil, bacon and black pudding “tossed” in a cold pan, with plenty of salt and pepper. I never heard of salting and peppering at this stage but what do I know.
I kept strictly to the timings so these ingredients got 4 minutes of heat. It was enough for the bacon and onion but not for the black pudding, which should be crispy.
The next stage is to “swiftly remove the ingredients from the pan with a large spoon or tongs” which indicates they are all in a clump, but they weren’t. I scraped them out and “decanted”. She uses such strange, confusing words.
Then half the water and the pasta go in. Bring to the boil, then add remaining water and stock cube. This is where things got a little strange. I stuck fairly exactly to Jacks timings, with 8 minutes to boil the pasta. The pasta was just under al dente after that time - but I was making half the quantity. So I suspect that with the full quantity the pasta wouldn’t have cooked. It wouldn’t be the end of the world to cook it for longer, but the point of this recipe is how little fuel you need to cook it, and that part doesn’t really hold true.
After the pasta is cooked, the heat goes off and milk and bacon/onion/black pudding go back in to “warm through” in the pan. It did not look enormously appetising at this stage.
The cheese is stirred through before serving, here are the real size portions:
Sorry for lack of manky spoons but I was getting bored by this stage. See, can’t cook!
The sauce was beige and runny, not super attractive. Notice the difference to Jack’s version:
You can see she’s heated this under a grill so it has crispy cheese and black pudding. My black pudding was in damp lumps. All very well to give the food a nicer texture and a better appearance, but more fuel used.
I tested it on husband and teen, they thought it was nice. It was very salty though, the stock cube going into the pasta water pumps the salt right up. Perhaps a frau with a palate would have felt choked by chicken stock cube.
Frauen and Herren, I’m afraid I chucked it down my neck like a greedy slopgoblin standing at the cooker! In my defence I‘ve had a day ill in bed without food and was at that “suddenly hungry“ stage. But honestly, this was nice, I cannot lie. However it would have been far better if only the black pudding and bacon had been crispy.
Husband articulated it well - “it brings out the bad side of black pudding”.
Sorry for lack of manky spoons but I was getting bored by this stage. See, can’t cook!
The sauce was beige and runny, not super attractive. Notice the difference to Jack’s version:
You can see she’s heated this under a grill so it has crispy cheese and black pudding. My black pudding was in damp lumps. All very well to give the food a nicer texture and a better appearance, but more fuel used.
I tested it on husband and teen, they thought it was nice. It was very salty though, the stock cube going into the pasta water pumps the salt right up. Perhaps a frau with a palate would have felt choked by chicken stock cube.
Frauen and Herren, I’m afraid I chucked it down my neck like a greedy slopgoblin standing at the cooker! In my defence I‘ve had a day ill in bed without food and was at that “suddenly hungry“ stage. But honestly, this was nice, I cannot lie. However it would have been far better if only the black pudding and bacon had been crispy.
Husband articulated it well - “it brings out the bad side of black pudding”.
Ingredients - 4 - mine cost 133% of Jack’s cost but still seems quite cheap. Although I had to spend £11 to buy the ingredients. It shows how meaningless these tiny costs per portion are.
Recipe - 3 - it’s hard to follow and could be so much clearer. The timings don’t work. It’s worst crime is the veneer of fuel- saving which is fake, I took a mark off for that. But to be fair it did result in edible food.
Visual appeal - 2 - everything I ever make looks like I threw it at the plate and this was no exception. Again, lies about fuel. To make Jack’s attractive version you need to use more fuel.
Texture - 4 - fine for a pasta dish apart from the floppy black pudding. Did I mention the flaccid black pudding?!
Taste - 4 - half off for too salty and half off for the aftertaste that makes you resolve not to google what’s in black pudding.
Overall - 3.4. The fuel-saving fiction is annoying. If you only hold Jack to the standards of an amateur food blogger, it’s fine. But you’d expect better from a 6 cookbook author, which she was when she wrote this.
Recipe - 3 - it’s hard to follow and could be so much clearer. The timings don’t work. It’s worst crime is the veneer of fuel- saving which is fake, I took a mark off for that. But to be fair it did result in edible food.
Visual appeal - 2 - everything I ever make looks like I threw it at the plate and this was no exception. Again, lies about fuel. To make Jack’s attractive version you need to use more fuel.
Texture - 4 - fine for a pasta dish apart from the floppy black pudding. Did I mention the flaccid black pudding?!
Taste - 4 - half off for too salty and half off for the aftertaste that makes you resolve not to google what’s in black pudding.
Overall - 3.4. The fuel-saving fiction is annoying. If you only hold Jack to the standards of an amateur food blogger, it’s fine. But you’d expect better from a 6 cookbook author, which she was when she wrote this.
I did think though, there wasn't much wiggle room to make it cheaper. Own brand cheese etc would make a difference but not my a massive amount. Happy to be educated on that though, I know I am very lucky to have not experienced true poverty.
then the cheese and finally the cream/milk/garlic concoction. It had to be done slowly so it didn't overflow, and you may notice garlic sitting on the top, as it was in the liquid mix, it never made it further than the top of the dish. 
I've never made dophinoise potatoes before and assume this is something similar but really wasn't expecting it. I started to question what I had done wrong before remembering this is the point. The recipes don't work and the person making them blames themselves! I think making a creamy, cheesey bechamel would work much better, but we know Jack doesn't believe in bechamel!! 
It's audio from rinsing the chicken 
