This boutique meatery has \u201creimagined\u201d traditional lard and come up with a way to enjoy bacon\u2019s fatty goodness from a jar.<\/p>\n
Dubbed Holly Gold, the product dawned as the brainchild of fifth-generation manager Ellie Vogtherr-Pulford.<\/p>\n
\u201cSmoky and salty\u201d, the old-school goodness is \u201cnostalgic, it\u2019s exciting\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople love the flavour of bacon, but you don\u2019t always want to cook a whole packet to get that taste.\u201d<\/p>\n
Holly Bacon’s Ellie Vogtherr-Pulford juggles a jar of “New Zealand’s first liquid bacon”. Photo \/ Mark Story<\/p>\n
It\u2019s similar to traditional pork lard, but with key differences.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis product is fat which we have cured (salt only) and then triple-smoked in our smoke house. Some of it is a biproduct of fat trimmed off our bacon, but to top it up we also use fat specifically for this product,\u201d Vogtherr-Pulford said. <\/p>\n
The idea rendered at night.<\/p>\n
\u201cOften I have my best ideas just before I fall asleep. I\u2019d seen someone saving bacon fat to make mayonnaise, and I thought that\u2019d taste amazing if we could do that somehow,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
So far, it\u2019s found its way to the kitchens of both the Mission Restaurant and celebrity chef Josh Emett.<\/p>\n
Its emergence coincides with a new reckoning, where healthy animal-fats are trumping cooking oils.<\/p>\n
A stable body, savoury depth and a high smoke point are big culinary drawcards.<\/p>\n
While duck fat, ghee, lard and dripping have been evergreens with professional chefs, their stars are now rising in home kitchens.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are more aware of what\u2019s going into their products … they\u2019re keener these days to do the research on what\u2019s in their food, traditional cooking, going back to Keto and Paleo-type ideas of natural fats,\u201d Vogtherr-Pulford said.<\/p>\n
Amen to that. <\/p>\n
Healthy animal fat is home cooking\u2019s recent revenant \u2013 awake and unashamedly threatening our wincingly outdated food pyramid.<\/p>\n
Holly Gold has been entered in this year\u2019s Outstanding New Zealand Food Producer Awards as an emerging product.<\/p>\n
So, the obvious question: could a super-hungry punter double down and cook bacon in it?<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, you could, but our bacon is tasty enough already,\u201d Vogtherr-Pulford said.<\/p>\n
And her favourite use?<\/p>\n
\u201cI like it simple, drizzled over scrambled eggs, or used to roast potatoes of course.\u201d<\/p>\n
Review<\/p>\n
Holly Gold $20 for 220 grams, ($24 post-launch price) <\/p>\n
I took her advice and went unfussy.<\/p>\n
A tablespoon of Holly Gold in a hot pan until shimmering. Ladled in three generous corn fritters. Four minutes on each side served with homemade tzatziki. <\/p>\n
How good?<\/p>\n
A more delicate bacon flavour than I had expected, but still a moreish, porky presence. A fatty, stable heat gifted golden crusts and a smoky-swine finish. Marvellous.<\/p>\n
Corn fritters are next-level if cooked in “liquid bacon” fat, Mark Story reckons. Photo \/ Mark Story<\/p>\n
* Do you know of a rising Hawke\u2019s Bay food or beverage product worth a profile? Contact mark.story@hbtoday.co.nz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This boutique meatery has \u201creimagined\u201d traditional lard and come up with a way to enjoy bacon\u2019s fatty goodness…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":339523,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[129667,44403,37560,4194,33092,98681,32896,1888,564,5194,47124,1345,6451,122870,1739,48934,32573,181610,117,111,43,139,69,3383,181611,6695,427,1961,686,2963],"class_list":["post-339522","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-appetite","tag-bacon","tag-butchery","tag-cook","tag-deputy","tag-eater","tag-editor","tag-first","tag-food","tag-hastings","tag-holly","tag-home","tag-knew","tag-lard","tag-launches","tag-liquid","tag-mark","tag-moreish","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-products","tag-rediscovers","tag-regions","tag-story","tag-this","tag-week","tag-zealands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339522","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=339522"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339522\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/339523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=339522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=339522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=339522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}