Chili's Bacon Burger

I have been to chilli's and its a very good restaurant. Though over priced but the food quality is good.

Recently I ordered a pig belly from Niman Ranch (http://www.nimanranch.com/control/product/~category_id=pork-specialty-cuts/~product_id=2005) which, when cured/smoked/grilled would put any other bacon to shame. This particular belly at it's widest point was 3 inches wide when sliced. I sliced it as thin as i could reliably with a chefs knife, and it was probably between four and five mm. I can't measure the thickness as it has passed through my digestive track.

I too have been subjected to the Hulu/Chilis/Bacon commercials, and have a wry smile on my face every time I see them :)

I've never made it, but...
http://www.pbs.org/everydayfood/recipes/brownsugar_bacon.html

Guys just love bacon!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4Ts4TtEwDc

Try this Link! B)

Bacon-flavored Vodka

http://www.vosgeschocolate.com/product/bacon_exotic_candy_bar/exotic_candy_bars

Anyone?

Very nice post, and way to have the motivation to actually hold chili's to their word. False advertisement is extraordinarily easy, and most of the time no one bothers to check on these claims. While Chili's may not literally have the thickest bacon ever created by man, at least they put in some good faith effort.

I hate it when no effort is put into the preparation and presentation of the food though. Come on Chili's, this is a sit-down restaurant, not Mcdonalds.

CW Guy
<a href = "http://www.classicwines.com">Wine Reviews</a>

I was wondering about their claim. Thanks for doing the heavy lifting for us. My calipers are currently in the shop, so measuring the thickness would have been difficult. However, I recently bought some bacon (forgot the brand, but was in the bacon section of the supermarket) and cooked a few slices. I measured them and they were 1/16 inch thick, thus the triple thick claim. Anyway, i wondered what would happen to the thickness if i fileted the newly acquired bacon. I carefully fileted a few pieces and cooked them, then measured them (as you probably guessed, they cooked in less time). They were slightly less than 1/32 inch thick each. I would have expected the sum of the widths to be 1/16 inch. This was confusing. But, upon further investigation, i noticed some residue on my knife. While i made no attempt to determine if the residue was in fact equal to the missing bacon, I was content with my assumption it was. Oh, and the cooked bacon was unfreakingbelievably delicious. Now, on to preparations for the bacon vodka.

I lived in Japan for a while and I could go to the supermarket and buy "bacon steak", a single 1/2" thick slab of bacon. Really it's meant to be cubed and mixed into something else (bacon and pork are very popular flavorings there) but I suppose there's nothing stopping you from cooking the whole slab and putting it on a burger. In fact, forget the burger!

So how do you like that, Chili's? Put that in your smokehouse and uh... smoke it. Yeah.

The two common bacon thicknesses, you may know, are 12 or 16 to the pound. If you take a package of bacon in America, it's generally one pound and you can tell by looking that the total thickness of 1 pound is about 1 inch-- how close exactly, I dunno, and of course thickness changes with cooking. I'd say 3/16" cooked thickness is pretty amazingly thick.

I've gotten 1/4" bacon cut, as someone mentioned in Japan-- it's indeed a great way to flavor something with smokey salty bacon flavor. Cube it and you've got "lardons," which are the first ingredient to hit the pot in both coq au vin and virtually any chowder-- you render the fat from them to cook anything else.

There's also a restaurant out here that'll take a thick "steak" of bacon, probably 1/4" or more, and deep-fry the sucker. I don't know if my heart can take it, but I'd be willing to try it!

As for bacon vodka, I've had it, and it's great-- it also really elevates a screwdriver. Search around for the Bacon Old Fashioned, which uses Grade B maple syrup and bacon-infused bourbon; instead of infusing with all the bacon, it just uses the bacon fat, and apparently infuses in hours, not weeks!

I know we sacrifice health for good food, but there's nothing right about the number of calories in one of those Bacon Big Mouth burgers.

Smokehouse Bacon Triple-The-Cheese Big Mouth Burger®
w/ out side of Jalapeño-Ranch Dressing
-----
1840

Southern Smokehouse Bacon Big Mouth Burger®
w/ out side of Ancho-Chile BBQ Sauce
----------------
1560


My source is their website.

Just so you know.

There is no other way to cook it (in a restaurant anyway) or so they say. I n any case, that's what they do at Chili's.

:P

The bacon is cooked on the flattop grill using a sheet pan so it doesnt curl up. If you were to fry it, then it would be nice and curly which is not the case.

In the glass business thickness units are called strength:
Single strength = 1/16"
Double strentgth = 1/8"
etc.
So triple thick bacon would then be 3/16", confimed by field measurement.