the pragmatic chef™

Bringing home the bacon, lettuce and tomato

By Paul Frumkin

(Sept. 19) - BLT might be the most commonly used acronym in the food lexicon, but that doesn’t mean that everyone chooses to interpret those three letters in quite the same way.
While the term generally suggests the durable combination of bacon, lettuce and tomato served with mayo between two slices of toasted bread, a growing number of chefs are bringing a new reading to the old favorite.

Many have expanded the scope of the term well beyond its no-frills sandwich origins and into the world of fine dining by combining the principal ingredients with such luxurious flourishes as foie gras, sweetbreads and Kobe beef. Other chefs have taken the traditional sandwich, deconstructed it and then reassembled the parts in new and innovative ways for use in soups, salads, pizzas, appetizers and main dishes.

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These days, however, the BLT combination also exerts considerable influence in other areas of menu development. California Pizza Kitchen, the Los Angeles-based dinnerhouse chain founded by Rick Rosenfield and Larry Flax in 1985, helped to alter Americans’ notions about pizza possibilities when they introduced some inventive toppings for their growing business. The BLT, a favorite of founder Flax, remains a CPK signature two decades later.

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Executive chef Robert Fathman arranges for the BLT to do double duty at Azure in Boston. “BLT is the typical American sandwich,” he says. “I like taking things I’ve grown up with and making them more adult oriented.”

In the spring Azure offers a BLT soup, prepared with green vegetables like English peas, fava beans and spinach, served in a bacon-infused crème fraîche with a garnish of yellow tomato concassé. To add flavor to the crème fraîche, he stirs in bacon dust, which he prepares by slow-cooking bacon, grinding it into a powder and allowing it to dry.

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At the River Oaks Grill in Houston, executive chef Michael Frietsch offers a BLT-inspired salad that includes bacon fried tempura-style. Bacon is first baked in the oven to keep it flat and then dipped in a loose tempura batter made with rice flour, baking powder and cold water. The battered bacon is fried just long enough for the batter to form a crisp shell.

The dish is prepared by placing a thick tomato slice on a plate where it is topped with ranch dressing infused with crème fraîche. Several pieces of iceberg lettuce are added, followed by more dressing. The dish is finished with two slices of tempura bacon and shaved Maytag blue cheese. Priced at $8, the salad has been quite popular, Frietsch says, but adds, “It’s somewhat intimidating when people first see it.”

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Oysters have a starring role in a BLT-inspired preparation at Restaurant L in Boston. Executive chef Pino Mafeo serves an appetizer containing thinly sliced, skin-off heirloom tomatoes layered on a rectangular plate. The tomatoes are spread lightly with herb mayonnaise and sprinkled with baby micro Thai basil and steamed jasmine rice that has been deep-fried until crispy.

Next Mafeo alternates rectangles of iceberg lettuce dressed with red wine vinaigrette in vertical layers with fried oysters dusted with cornmeal and rice flour and thin strips of bacon. The finished preparation, which forms four small stacks, stands about 2 inches high and sells for $14.

David Burke says he offers “a BLT-style sandwich without the sandwich” for $20 at davidburke & donatella in New York. A piece of grilled brioche coated with basil oil and chipotle is placed on a plate and topped with a boneless, skinless paillard of chicken, a layer of asparagus, caramelized onions, lettuce, heirloom tomatoes, three strips of bacon and a second chicken paillard. “The chicken paillard takes the place of the bread,” he explains.

But while the New York chef-restaurateur offers a BLT sandwich that omits the bread, he also has ideas for one that omits the bacon — sort of. Burke has developed a retail line of flavor sprays — one of which tastes like bacon — that contain no calories, fat, carbohydrates or cholesterol.

“You can make a BLT with the lettuce, tomato and bread, and then just give it a couple of shots of the bacon spray,” he says. “It will have the same flavor profile but without the expense, the calories or the fat. It’s tremendous.”