Soy bacon for BBQ chicken

[EmpireState]

I found a recipe from Bobby Flay for BBQ chicken that sounds yummy. However one of the ingredients for the sauce is a slice of bacon. Has anyone ever tried subbing a piece of pareve soy bacon for something like this?

[SoCal Mother]

The only soy bacon I have ever seen is Morningstar and it's 1) dairy and 2) inedible. I vote for frying up a few slices of pastrami or corned beef and throwing in a little liquid smoke.

[EmpireState]

Light life makes pareve soy bacon. If I can find any of the above in the supermarket, I will
try it. If not, I will just use the liquid smoke. Problem number two: the recipe calls for a brine made with 2 tablespoons of salt. Would that be overkill for a kosher chicken (which is already soaked and salted)?

[DeisCane]

There are a couple pareve facons out there.

[SoCal Mother]

Wait isn't your recipe already fleishig? Why search for soy bacon? Check out the thread on bacon - I think they are experimenting with fried deli meats.

As far as the brineing is concerned, I suspect that unless the original recipe started out with kosher meat, the kashering is the functional equivalent of brineing.

[EmpireState]

I was considering using soy bacon, due to the fact that I wanted to make the chicken and I didn't have time to go to a kosher supermarket to get bacon substitutes other than soy bacon, which is readily available at my local regular supermarket.

[AdinaA]

In your position, I would use almost any kosher smoked meat, or a splash of liquid smoke and a dollop of chicken, goose, or duck fat.

Where it gets hard is when you are trying to sub into a recipe that calls for wrapping something in bacon. But if you are crumbling bacon into a sauce, you can sub with liquid smoke and a little fat.

[DeisCane]

What Adina said...

[magiesmom]

Yes. don't brine kosher chicken.

[avitrek]

If the bacon is being used in a sauce then the fat/flavor is much more important than the texture. Go for one of the many meat suggestions that have been mentioned on other "kosher bacon" threads. I doubt soy bacon will add anything to your bbq sauce.

[EmpireState]

That makes sense. Would you think that liquid smoke would be a closer approximation? I would like to make the chicken tonight and don't have time to get to a store that would have beef fry, etc. Something available in a regular supermarket would be great.

[ferret]

Liquid smoke is okay (maintain a light touch) some smoked turkey (dark meat) would be better. We smoke turkey legs a lot because they impart a nice smoked flavor to a variety of dishes.

[weinstein5]

I have good success using beef fry in place of bacon in recipes with great success -

[rockycat]

You could also try adding Bacon Salt for flavor and possibly a very little extra oil for the fat. Just make sure you get one of the parve flavors of Bacon Salt and go gently in adding it, tasting as you go.