Bacon Wrapped Dates
The combination of dates and bacon may sound strange, but the sweet and smokey combination is amazingly good! After dining at Mesón Sabika tapas restaurant (http://www.mesonsabika.com/) in Naperville, Illinois and sampling their “Datiles Con Tocino” (baked dates wrapped in bacon, served with red bell pepper sauce), I was inspired to try to make the dish at home—and this recipe comes pretty close.
Servings: 30 pieces
Ingredients
Bacon Wrapped Dates
- 1 pound uncooked bacon
- 1 8-ounce package pitted dates
Red Bell Pepper Sauce
- 2 to 4 cloves garlic
- ½ large red bell pepper seeded, quartered
- ½ medium yellow onion
- ¼ cup half-and-half or cream, a little more if desired
- 1 to 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- ⅛ teaspoon salt to taste
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375°F.
- Soak round toothpicks in water for 15 minutes to prevent burning when baking.
Red Bell Pepper Sauce
- Place garlic cloves with peels on a baking dish and bake at 375° F. for 15 minutes.
- While garlic is baking, rub pepper and onion with olive oil.
- After the garlic cloves have baked for 15 minutes, add the red bell pepper and onion to the baking sheet. Bake for an additional 15 minutes, or until tender and roasted. It may take a bit longer—but check the garlic and remove it if it is starting to dry out and get hard.
- Squeeze the roasted garlic out of it’s paper into a blender or small food processor, along with the roasted onion and bell pepper.
- Blend until smooth.
- Slowly add olive oil until blended. Adjust amount of olive oil as desired.
- Add salt.
- Add half and half slowly while blending until mixture is creamy.
- Serve immediately. Or cover and refrigerate until ready to serve, then gently warm in microwave.
Bacon Wrapped Dates
- Cut bacon strips in half, making them approximately 3 inches long.
- Wrap each date with half strip of bacon and secure with a toothpick.
- Spray a cookie sheet with nonstick spray. Place all prepared dates in the cookie sheet. Note: Be sure to use a cookie sheet with sides to prevent bacon drippings from running off onto the bottom of the oven! Alternately, use a mini muffin pan and suspend a date over each opening.
- Bake at 375° F. for approximately 15 minutes, turning once. Note: It is very important to turn the dates while baking!
- After turning, continue baking for an additional 10 to 15 minutes or until bacon is brown and crispy.
- Serve with the red bell pepper sauce for dipping, or plate the dates in a puddle of sauce.
Notes
Everything can be prepared and baked ahead of time and served later. Just warm through in the microwave for about 30 seconds.
From Recipezaar (http://www.recipezaar.coma) recipe #365804