So what to do for a special Anniversary? Well, it has to include bacon! I wanted to wrap a Tenderloin with bacon and grill it, but didn't want to bother with strings and toothpicks and such. And the end dish should allow the diner to easily portion a bit of bacon with each bite of steak.
As an Engineer, I had purchased over the web some "meat glue" (or transglutaminase) to experiment with, and the transglutaminase seemed to be just the ticket to creating this dish! It acts like super glue, allowing you to attach any piece of meat to another piece of meat. In this meal, I used it to attach bacon to tenderloin, and bacon to salmon.
When I first got my "meat glue," I was disappointed that I couldn't find any instructions on how to use the stuff. But then I saw a couple of episodes of Iron Chef where they used it, and I basically followed their lead. I will do some experiments over the next couple of months to refine my techniques, and I will report them here!
First a word about transglutaminase. As awful as that sounds, the stuff is an enzyme that is present in all meat already. So you are not adding something unnatural to your food. This enzyme causes animal cells to bind to one another (that is what holds meat together in the first place). Assuming that you eat meat, then you have eaten loads of this stuff already.
Some words on handling meat glue are in order. Meat glue is an Enzyme. This means you don't want to breath it or get it on your hands. (I have had it on my hands to no ill effect I can tell, but until someone demonstrates otherwise, I will avoid this.) Use latex (or similar) gloves while working with the stuff. You can wear a mask, though I don't. The powder doesn't seem to become airborne to any great degree. BUT I am no expert. I am just describing what I did.
All of this sounds scary, but the fact is I pretty much do the same thing anytime I am using adhesives in my workshop. Gluing yourself or parts of your body together is kind of annoying.
If you want more information, you can get it over the web. Here is one article on "What is Meat Glue?" that I found reasonable.
So here is where we start. I have two nice sized tenderloins procured from Costco, and a batch of home cured bacon. (I did a wet cure, and Pecan Smoked).
I sprinkled the meat glue (using an old cinnamon spice bottle) all over my bacon and tenderloin. I took one piece of bacon cut in half and covered the ends.
The next step is to take the sprinkled bacon you see above, and wrap it around and around the tenderloin. I basically make a bacon ribbon, with each piece overlapping the next by about a half an inch, and spiral it around the tenderloin, covering it completely. Here they are after I am done:
Now to set a glue, it helps to put it in a vise. With food, the best vise around is a vacuum sealer. I happen to have a Food Saver vaccuum sealer, so into a couple of bags they go:
Now, just to top off the whole Atkins kind of diet, I'd like a bit of salmon to go with the steak. To tie it all together, I'll top the salmon with some thin strips of bacon cut along the bias (at an angle) and meat glue it on. (As before, I vacuum seal it to hold the bacon tightly against the salmon.)
All the sealed tenderloin and salmon went into the refrigerator to set for over an hour. I don't know exactly how long the meat glue needs to set. But I have seen meat glue used on Iron Chef, and they only have an hour to fix their meals. An hour then must be over kill, but it is also safe.
Once prepared, I grilled the tenderloin until the bacon was crisp. Grilling was done at very high heat, and only a minute or two on a side before rotating the tenderloin about 90 degrees. If the tenderloin is placed on the grill at an 45 degree angle, you will get nice diagonal grill marks. After one pass, rotate 45 degrees to make your diagonal grill marks into hatched grill marks. Sorry, forgot to take pictures of the grilling process.
In total, the tenderloin isn't on the grill very long, maybe 10 to 15 minutes. Wrap in foil, then wrap in a towel (to allow it to continue to cook). Let it rest 15 to 20 minutes. Hey, that is about how long it takes to cook salmon!
I put my salmon on a ceder plank and stuck it on the already quite hot grill. The plank had been soaked for a few hours in water, which keeps it from burning up. After about 10 minutes, I put the whole plank on a cooking sheet, and popped it under the broiler. I won't tell you how long; you just absolutely have to watch because a broiler can send your fish from perfect to ash in seconds!
Then the tenderloin is taken from the foil, and sliced on the bias. Notice the bacon just sticks to the sides!! No toothpicks or stings! Just delicious bacon and tenderloin!
Now if you think it is only by chance that the cat snuck into a picture of a table covered in food, you do not know that cat!
