BBQ Sauce

Personally I really quite enjoy BBQ saunce with my bacon butty...

Back, smoked, and slightly crispy to the rest...

Grilled with a light coating of warm butter.

And fresh Warburtons Toastie.

Oh as to Veggies...

I prefer mine well grilled, and no where near my bacon butty, as we know they are all rather partial to "vegetarian delight".

gotta have

Fried mushrooms and eggs with it

But i have to admit i love to lob chunks of butter on my bacon sarnie.

But no sauces for me thank you

That's the least of your worries. Being repeatedly pelted with rotten fruit and subsequently burned at the stake for heresy should be your primary concern.

Little scared to admit this now, but I discovered a delight fairly recently, so;

Three slices of bread

Fry 2 eggs and bacon (sausages too if you're really hungry)

Fry one piece of bread

Smear the remaining slices with Dairylea (trust me)

Build yourself a double decker sandwich.

It's called the triple heart bypass and it's fookin tasty. Yes it's got dairylea in it, but yes it does seem to be a lot better that way.

*runs for cover*

Nobody else have avocado with theirs? *ducks*

Slices of well ripe avocado do make a tasty bacon sarnie additive, honestly try it...

The ultimate bacon sarnie.

It has to be fresh cut white bread.

Several slices of back bacon, to be grilled not fried and so it's nice and crispy.

Mayonnaise on the bread instead of butter and voila. A treat fit for a King.

The best bacon sandwich

Personally if the bacons good enough sauce is optional.

But the best bacon sandwich is the one brought to you in bed with a brew by your other half.

Admitedly its a pretty rare sandwich, since it seems when you ask for one its only made from flying pigs.

Meh

Fish fingers and custard sandwich please.

Didn't have much of a problem with El Reg's Recipe Except......

I prefer the bread brown and preferably lightly toasted before it sees the butter and the bacon (and yes, people do tell me I'm a heretic so feel free to down-vote).

Blimey, you lot are hard to please.

My own variation is thus:

Ingredients:

Fresh baked white bread. Not sliced, and none of that cotton wool crap you get in supermarkets.

Treacle cure bacon from Suffolk.

Duck egg.

Stoke's red sauce.

Toasted sesame oil (only a little).

Fry the bacon in a little of the oil, until slightly crispy on the rind. Fry the egg in about half an inch of oil. The flavour of the two are really nutty and bloody gorgeous. Let the bacon rest a minute on a warm plate, and lightly toast one side of each piece of bread, on the inside, of course. Combine the lot with Stoke's red sauce.

Breakfast of champions, and a fantastic hangover cure to boot.

Mustard

The garlic farm on the Isle of Wight makes garlic and horseradish mustard which is absolutely gorgeous on a bacon sarnie.

As for cooking the bacon, 20 seconds on each side under a hot grill, or 15 seconds eacch side in a pan, or 5 minutes held close to a 100W lightbulb is enough to cook bacon for a sarnie.

I don't know what this "cooking" thing is...

But ironically I find the cornish pastie co on clapham junction bridge does some of the best 7am bacon sarnies...

No damn sauces.

Ever.

For the Best, go with the basics:

Lightly-toasted bread, swabbed with a small amount of bacon grease. Smoked bacon fried to that perfect junction between crispy and pink. Add slice of tomato, small-ish leaf of lettuce.

Done.

Heritics add a slice of onion, but we know what to do with heritics. And cheese is right out.

Smoked bacon is the devils work.

Used to have bacon sarnies made with a simple cure bacon where the 8 slices of back bacon just changed colour in the frying pan and then slapped on some heavily buttered fresh white bloomer. Cant get that particular bacon any more but tried to make my own - no luck.

If you like crispy streaky I recommend it on some fresh wholemeal sourdough that is still warm from the oven.

I should add that there is no perfect bacon sarnie - the UK has a lot of what the french call terroir: local peaks of quality that are worth searching for. You may even find someone who can actually smoke bacon properly and not dip it in ashtray washings like the supermarkets do.

Oh and suffolk black bacon on rye bread is an eye-opener and definitely worth trying if you don't mind throwing your frying pan away afterwards.

Sauce? Seriously?

I'm no veggie, before anyone starts, but that pig died to be on my roll, and the least I can do is appreciate the poor bastard. That poor, delicious bastard.

Shit - I don't have any bacon in...

mayo

Mayonnaise > Butter

"we have to work with what we can get ..."

... at the Special Project Bureau's mountaintop kitchen complex, so we make no apology for the bacon."

Methinks "kitchen complex" is the operative term ...

Make your own bacon. It ain't rocket science. Recipe(s) follow(s).

Rub salt[1][2][3] on preferred chunk of meat. Other seasonings optional.

Wrap in cling-film. Place in fridge for a week or ten days. Rinse & dry.

Smoke[4] low & slow, ~205-220F, until done to taste.

[1] For wild game, I use curing salt; homegrown meat and fish gets Diamond Kosher.

[2] Brine fowl for 12-24 hours. 2Tbs salt per quart of water, to cover.

[3] Rinse fish and get it into the smoker ASAP, no more than 24 hours after salting.

[4] I use green Manzanita over White Oak coals. YMMV.

[5] Some fish goes into the meat locker prior to smoking to develop what they call "pellicle" after rinsing the salt & drying.

Look, we all know there is only one way to make a bacon sarnie.

Add some extra virgin olive oil to a frying pan and throw in some British oak smoked, dry cure streaky bacon rashers (6-8 per sarnie for a ‘me’ sized serving)

Cook on medium high until crisp - but not brittle, it should still be soft enough to tear.

Let the bacon dry between some paper towels for a few seconds.

Take 2 slices of doorstep cut bread - preferably the end pieces. While the bacon is drying, partially toast your bread. In such a short toasting time it should retain much the same texture and flexibility of bread but be warmer and slightly drier to the touch.

You can now apply a generous helping of Jersey butter on to both bits of warm bread, this should be quite easy as the bread will partially melt the butter. Distribute your rashers evenly over one slice. Apply a dollop of pre-Cameron* HP brown sauce. Cover with other slice. Now grip that sucker with a sheet of paper towel and eat it as fast as you can before all the juices run!

If you are feeling particularly decadent I recommend frying a medium free range egg in the bacon juices. This should be cooked on both sides; the yolk should be of medium consistency. Doing this ensures optimal runny yolk dispersal through the sarnie when you place the yolk face down on the bacon and apply a little pressure with the top slice of bread using the palm of your hand.

*No, you can't buy any off me.

Open fire in open field

The best bacon sarnie is cooked on a smoky open fire in a field first thing in the morning with you and your mates surrounded by a massive pile of open stella cans from the previous night.

It doesn't matter what type of bacon or bread you use or whether you add sausages or eggs, the sarnie should contain some crunchy bits and be accompanied by a big mug of steaming hot tea.

(when you fish the unidentified floaters out of your tea with a grubby finger it will leave a greasy film on top, oh and don't drain your cup in one last big gulp, there will be something in the bottom)

When your hangover starts to abate (at around 11) it is time to go to the pub for a couple of pints and then retire home at about 3pm to fall asleep on the settee (snoring loudly)

For days afterwards the first thing visitors will say is 'is something burning'

Of course you are all wrong...

But I suspect what is perfect depends an awful lot on the circumstances...

When you arrive at a Sailing club* (change venue to suit sport of your choice) having got up at some insane time of the morning to travel for a weekend's racing, then someone offering you a bacon sandwich made with otherwise horrble standard white bread and marge is armed with the food of the gods.. On the other hand if I want a classy snack early in the evening then its got to be fresh white crusty bread with butter and grilled, not fired bacon with grilled pineapple rings. Post a big session in the pub - well it hardly matters does it?

Brown sauce: not with bacon please. In a fish finger sandwich on the other hand HP sauce is great...

[sonafoabitch: I'm getting the munchies. I think I'm going to have to go and buy some bacon if I don't step away from the keyboard]

May I suggest a petition ...

... to bring back PanYan Pickle.

My mate down the Pub reckons the recipie was destroyed in a fire years ago.

Anyone got a very old jar knocking about?

All very well

But if your hangover precludes the use of equipment that is sharp or very hot, then you need to seek an alternate source (geddit? Oh well, please yourselves).

On those occasions, while on contract to a firm in Camden, I used to avail myself of the delights of the Café Metro stand-up, situated in Camden High St between the Electric Ballroom and Camden Town Tube. They'll pretty much make it how you like, but on exceptional occasions a hot baguette with bacon, egg and onions is the only way to go...

Yes yes... the coat with the diced carrots and tomato skins down the front...