Mastering bacsilog: tips for perfect bacon and garlic fried rice

Filipinos are, like most Asians, rice eaters. While many consider pandesal to be the quintessential breakfast food, historically, bread made with wheat flour was unknown in the Philippines before the arrival of the Spaniards. With the colonizers came pan de suelo, the Spanish adaptation of the French baguette. It was the precursor to what came to be known as Filipino pandesal.

So, before there was bread, there was already rice. But what Filipinos ate with rice for breakfast evolved over time. Some of the modern silog (fried rice and egg) dishes includes components that are not native to the country’s cuisine at all. Take bacon, for instance. While curing meat was not unknown in the country, bacon arrived via the Americans.

In the 1920s when the Philippines was an American colony, bacon was already a rising star on the American breakfast table thanks to the PR manipulation of a man who was later dubbed “father of public relations.” Filipinos took to bacon with the same gusto as hotdog. For those who could afford it, bacon, often paired with eggs, became a popular breakfast item. It could be enjoyed with bread or with rice.

Cooking bacsilog (bacon, fried rice and egg) might sound simple but there are two things you should remember: How you cook the bacon matters and rendered bacon fat is delicious.

In this recipe, tips for cooking the crispiest non-greasy bacon and how to make garlic herb fried rice with the rendered bacon fat.

Start by cooking your bacon rashers in the oven. I’ve been asked if an air fryer will work too but I have my reservations.

First, the size of an air fryer. Since the bacon rashers have to be laid out side by side without touching one another, there are very few bacon rashers that can be cooked in an average-sized air fryer.

Second, if the bacon is ultra fatty, there will be a generous amount of fat that gets rendered, and air fryers aren’t made to collect fat. You will have to check the manual of your air fryer to see if it’s okay to cook bacon in it. We tried it once and the smoke that came out of the air fryer was scary so we never did it again.

So, we cook whole bacon rashers in the oven. Here’s how. Place a rack over a sheet pan. Then, arrange the bacon strips on the rack, not quite touching one another but not too far apart either so as not to use as much of the surface of the rack. That way, you can cook more bacon in one go.

As the strips of bacon cook, the fat drips into the tray beneath the rack. So, instead of letting the bacon fry in its own fat, which is what happens when bacon is cooked in a frying pan on the stovetop, the bacon renders fat instead of getting soaked in it.

What do we do with the bacon fat?

Cooking eggs and rice with rendered bacon fat

If there’s a lot, I pour the fat into a jar, keep it in the fridge, and just scoop out what I need for cooking. In preparing bacsilog, I use the bacon fat to fry the egg and rice.

Bacsilog (bacon, fried rice and egg)

Prep time: 5 minutes / Cook time: 30 minutes / Serving: 3

Ingredients

500 grams belly bacon (see notes after the recipe)
3 eggs
salt
1 teaspoon minced garlic
¾ teaspoon Herbes de Provence (store bought)
¼ teaspoon ground black pepper
3 cups day-old rice

Process

Cook the bacon

Preheat the oven to 375F.
Place a rack over a sheet pan and arrange the bacon slices on the rack in a single layer (see notes after the recipe).
Cook the bacon in the oven until crisp.
Take the bacon out of the oven and leave on the rack to rest.