My "onions first" attitude may be caused by the habits of several years as a veggie, i.e. brown an onion then add stuff.
For larger meats eg chunks of chicken or diced pork, I'd say it's best to brown the onions first, take them out of the pan, brown the meat and then put the onions back. But I still usually brown the onions then add stuff!
Browning the onion requires some fat in the pan, so the tasty and expeditious way to acheive this is to have already got some fat in the pan from the bacon-browning step.
I add the onions first due to the longer time it takes to soften them (and to release the flavour). The bacon I'd like to cool before I cut it - ideally I'd grill it rather than fry it - then add to the softening onion.
Strips of ham possibly, but I usually do beef and almost never bacon.
When I cook bacon I find the water comes out and the bacon ends up sticking to the pan and requires a wooden spatula to scrape the gunge off the pan, so I do the onions first (in a little olive oil), remove them, do the bacon, remove that, remove the gunge from the pan, reheat the bacon fat, put the onions back in, cut up the bacon into small pieces, add the rest of the sauce to the onions and then add the bacon in nearly last (just before the last lot of herbs and spices)
you need oil for the onions and bacon grease will infuse the flavour. use pancetta cubetti - little precut cubes of cured bacon - rather than rashers - they stand up to the long cooking far better than lardons of normal rashers. And have a better flavour, which does really add to the ragu sauce. If you want a really rich ragu, a little pork, or chicken livers will make things very intense; good for lasagne as well as a pasta sauce.
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For larger meats eg chunks of chicken or diced pork, I'd say it's best to brown the onions first, take them out of the pan, brown the meat and then put the onions back. But I still usually brown the onions then add stuff!
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K.
aah
How firm are my onions?
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Mushrooms.
mmmm.
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Strips of ham possibly, but I usually do beef and almost never bacon.
When I cook bacon I find the water comes out and the bacon ends up sticking to the pan and requires a wooden spatula to scrape the gunge off the pan, so I do the onions first (in a little olive oil), remove them, do the bacon, remove that, remove the gunge from the pan, reheat the bacon fat, put the onions back in, cut up the bacon into small pieces, add the rest of the sauce to the onions and then add the bacon in nearly last (just before the last lot of herbs and spices)
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