Pork Roast Baconchicken - Oh, and Cheesecake

No matter what you call it: Chicken Roast Baconpork, Chick'o Bacon, Bake-a Chicken, Chickeny Pork, or just pork pork chicken, it sounds wrong. And for good reason, it's roughly 4,500 calories in a bread pan. As a matter of fact, the only reason I didn't call it simply Death is it lacks a key death ingredient: foie gras. Nevertheless, it does a fantastic job of packing a lot of energy in a small package, and tastes delicious doing so.

The genesis of this project came Saturday morning as I was perusing the smattering of food stands which crop up every weekend in Union square. A sign caught my eye, "World's best bacon" and of course 5 minutes later I found myself carrying two pounds of the meat home along with the rest of my groceries from Trader Joe's. It dawned on me (way post fact) that I had a big pork roast in the fridge which I should prepare before it went bad and this put me in a conundrum because I really wanted nothing more than to make my bacon. Not one to compromise, I decided I would have them both! So began the Pork Roast Baconchicken.

Accessories to murder.

To start, I opened up the pork roast until I had a thin flat sheet of meat. You probably need a sharp knife for this. On this, I layered two thinly shredded chicken thighs (never get breast, it's too boring)[you know what I meant] and the pan fried bacon.

Then I took some spinach and thinly sliced mushrooms, and made a nice happy layer of those.

At this point it was getting pretty massive, so I decided I needed some congealing foods; what better to hold fatty meat together than fatty dairy? I beat two eggs and a half stick of melted butter together, and poured that on with a mixture of shredded Gruyère and Manchego cheeses, to get this magnificent pile of goodness.

Rolled up this went, in the breadpan in a 350 oven for 45 minutes.

While that was baking, I took it upon myself to make a little cheesecake. I'm gearing up to making myself a full Cassata--the ultimate desert to end all desserts--so I figured I'd try making a Ricotta cheesecake. I found a recipe online that looked simple enough, so I gave it a whirl.

First, you make a graham cracker crust in a false bottom pan with

• 1 cup crushed graham crackers
• 1/4 cup crushed grains
• 3 T sugar
• 1 stick butter
• a pinch of salt

I'll be honest the recipe called for less than a stick of butter, but between friends I'd just as well assume the recipe writer must have been feeling pressure from health-interest groups. Anyway mush that all together and bake it for 10 or so minutes, to give it some crunch.

While that's going, get mixing in a bowl:

• 5 eggs
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 3 T flour
• 30 oz. ricotta cheese

When this is all beaten and smooth, fold in 2 cups of blueberries. I have to note that the original recipe calls for some mace and nutmeg, although in the quantities prescribed would totally overpower and ruin the ricotta flavor. Ricotta is delicate, don't hit it with a mace.

Well whatever you decide to do, pour this into the pan, taking care to break the fall of the cheese so that it doesn't break up the pre-baked crust. Now bake this for a good 1:25, until the center is almost set. Leave this in the oven 20-30 minutes after the oven's been off, otherwise if you're too greedy (or just in a rush to vacate the oven so someone else can use it) the center will fall as it cools.

You might be wondering what happened to photos of the Pork Roast Baconchicken... hmm well, I was hungry and I forgot to take photos. In my defense, it was super tasty. Not gourmet in that the complex marriage of subtle flavors augment and intermingle with each other to--no, it was just awesomely fatty and filling.