A Midsummer MN Feast with Bacon Chipotle Sauce

Now here's a meal that just screams summer in Minnesota to me.

The first MN sweet corn of the season dripping with heavenly Hope, MN butter. Grilled grass-fed New York strip steak from Thousand Hills Cattle Company in Cannon Falls, MN. (I had the pleasure of sitting with the Churchill's, the founders of Thousand Hills, at FRESH and Tasty and they make you feel great about eating locally raised beef.) Thick grilled zucchini slices picked fresh from our garden topped with a Bacon Chipotle Slather Sauce. All eaten in the backyard on a warm summer's evening.

Ok, I'll admit Bacon Chipotle Sauce isn't very Minnesotan but it certainly makes everything else taste great & the bacon is Nueskes from WI. The sauce has an wonderful smokey flavor from the bacon and the chipolte plus a touch of sweetness from brown sugar and molasses. We used Muir Glen fire-roasted tomatoes which also upped the smoky flavor.

We put the sauce on the zucchini while it was grilling which gave the zucchini, a vegetable that can be bland, amazing flavor. I also liked it as a dipping sauce from the beef. I can only imagine it would be fabulous on a hamburger or hotdog.

Bacon Chipotle Slather Sauce
(by Tara Mataraza Desmond via Serious Eats)

2 slices thick-sliced bacon, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
4 large shallots, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
2 T light brown sugar
1 T tomato paste
1/4 c malt vinegar
1/4 c water
2 T molasses
1 T Dijon mustard
1 T Worcestershire sauce
28-oz crushed tomatoes (we used diced & they worked just fine)
1 rehydrated, dried chipotle or chipotle in adobe (we took out the seeds for a mild sauce, leave them in for spicy)
salt & pepper

Heat a large pan over medium heat. Add the bacon & cook until its crisp. Add the shallots and garlic & cook them in the bacon fat for about 5 minutes until tender. Stir in the brown sugar & tomato paste. Then add the vinegar, water, molasses, mustard, Worcestershire, tomatoes & chipotle. Reduce the heat to medium-low and simmer for 30 minutes. Season to taste with salt & pepper.

Transfer to a blender & process until smooth. (Careful its hot!)

Store in the refrigerator or freeze to use later.

Makes 4 cups.

If you are not reading this post in a feed reader or at http://agoodappetite.blogspot.com OR at http://agoodappetite.com then the site you are reading is illegally publishing copyrighted material. Contact me at katbaro AT yahoo DOT COM. All recipes, text and photographs in this post are the original creations & property of the author unless otherwise noted.
© 2007-2009 Kathy Lewinski