Brioche Rolls — The Biscuit That Carried the Bacon Home

Made bacon. Five days of waiting for the cure to work — the pork belly sitting in the refrigerator wrapped in plastic with the pink salt and brown sugar and black pepper doing their chemistry, drawing out moisture, preserving the meat the way salt has preserved meat since before we had refrigerators to put it in. Thursday morning I rinsed the belly, dried it, and put it in the smoker over apple wood at 200 degrees for three hours. The smoke was light and sweet, not heavy like hickory, and the belly turned the color of old leather and the fat rendered to a silky texture and when I sliced the first piece and fried it in the cast iron and ate it off the paper towel, I understood something I hadn't understood before: this is what bacon is supposed to taste like. Not the thin, watery, nitrate-heavy strips from the grocery store. This. Thick, smoky, complex, the cure balancing the salt with a hint of sweet, the smoke sitting underneath like a bass note in a song you didn't know had a bass line.

Connie ate four pieces and said nothing, which from Connie means she's eating four pieces and saving her commentary for later, except later never came, which means the bacon spoke for itself. Four pieces of silence from Connie is a standing ovation.

Took some to Travis on Saturday. He ate it on a biscuit with an egg and said Dad, you should sell this. I said I'm not selling bacon. He said why not. I said because Betty didn't sell food, Betty made food. He said times change. I said some things don't. He shrugged and ate another biscuit.

The cookbook notebook is up to forty-one recipes now. Forty-one, and each one is a piece of a life that I'm assembling on paper, the way you assemble a house — foundation first, then walls, then roof, then the details that make it a home instead of a structure. The bacon isn't Betty's recipe. It's mine. But it belongs in the notebook because the notebook isn't just Betty's kitchen anymore. It's mine too. It's both of ours, the way a family recipe is always both — the person who made it first and the person who makes it now, and the distance between them is exactly the distance between a kitchen in Evarts and a kitchen in Lexington, which is three hours by car and a lifetime by everything else.

Travis ate two of those bacon-egg-and-biscuit sandwiches before he started talking about selling anything, and it occurred to me afterward that the biscuit mattered almost as much as the bacon. A good piece of meat deserves bread that can hold up to it — something with enough butter and softness to cradle the egg and the thick-sliced bacon without falling apart in your hands. These brioche rolls are what I’ve started making when I want that sandwich done right: rich, pillowy, with just enough structure to be a vehicle and just enough flavor to be a partner. Recipe number forty-two for the notebook.

Brioche Rolls

Prep Time: 30 minutes (plus 2 hours rising) | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 2 hours 50 minutes | Servings: 12 rolls

Ingredients

• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 packet (2 1/4 teaspoons) active dry yeast
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup whole milk, warmed to 110°F
• 4 large eggs, room temperature (3 for dough, 1 for egg wash)
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened and cut into pieces
• 1 tablespoon water

Instructions

1. Activate the yeast. In a small bowl, combine the warm milk and a pinch of the sugar. Sprinkle the yeast over top and let sit until foamy, about 5 to 10 minutes.
2. Mix the dough. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the dough hook, combine the flour, sugar, and salt. Add the yeast mixture and 3 eggs. Mix on low speed until a shaggy dough forms, about 2 minutes.
3. Add the butter. With the mixer on medium-low, add the softened butter one or two pieces at a time, waiting until each addition is mostly incorporated before adding the next. This will take about 8 to 10 minutes. The dough will look sticky and loose at first but will come together into a smooth, elastic dough that pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
4. First rise. Transfer the dough to a lightly greased bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm spot until doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours.
5. Shape the rolls. Punch down the dough and turn it out onto a lightly floured surface. Divide into 12 equal pieces. Roll each piece into a smooth ball and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet, spacing about 2 inches apart. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let rise until puffy, about 30 to 45 minutes.
6. Prepare the egg wash. Beat the remaining egg with 1 tablespoon of water. Gently brush the tops of each roll with the egg wash.
7. Bake. Preheat the oven to 375°F. Bake the rolls for 18 to 20 minutes, until deep golden brown on top and the internal temperature reads 190°F. Let cool on the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 270 | Protein: 7g | Fat: 13g | Carbs: 31g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 210mg