Grilled Back Bacon BLT and Chilled Andalucian Gazpacho

I have come to love the BLT. I know I am late to the party on this one, but I always hated lettuce on a sandwich – something about the texture, and never liked mayo. I used to think the BLT should be a BCT – where the lettuce is replaced by cheese. But Pret’s streaky bacon BLT changed that, and it wasn’t long before I was comparing BLT’s across town and attempting my own versions.

The BLT started in Victorian times (although they used cheese), and today’s name comes from the American diner’s use of shorthand when taking orders. I read that in America it’s the second most popular sandwich after the Ham Sandwich. I would have had my money on a pb&j or grilled cheese, but if it ever comes up in pub trivia, you owe me a beer.

My version, today, utilised Spoilt Pig’s back bacon. For the Americans, back bacon is closest to Canadian bacon, but has a little nip of streaky bacon on top. It has much less fat, and is actually pretty close to simple ham. As a lover of streaky bacon, and bizarrely a hater of ham, I shouldn’t like it, but I do. I thought it would be a bit healthier in the sandwich.

I grilled the back bacon on the weber (gas – who would ever bother to get charcoal going for something as small as bacon?) and toasted the multigrain bread there too. I applied a bit of hellmans extra light mayo and then a nice big layer of gem lettuce and fresh isle of white tomatoes. Yum.

For the gazpacho, i did my usual ‘dump a lot of stuff in the blender’ but also chopped up extra onion, red pepper and cucumber finely to add back to the blended bit for a little crunch.