This leaves my office in about 30 minutes:
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Now, for my lesson. (We're still doing that, right?) More of a recipe than a lesson. I was watching Bourdain's holiday special, and they stopped at a restaurant owned by an English woman to see what she was making. One of the appetizers she was making looked so amazing that I had to make some for New Year's Eve. They came out incredible, and were very simple.
Devils on Horseback
Pitted dates
Bacon - 1/3 to 1/2 strip per date
A pear (I used Seckel)
A cup of tea
Brandy
Toothpicks
Make the tea in a bowl, and once at the desired strength, add a shot of brandy. Soak the dates in the tea/brandy mix for 30 minutes. While they're soaking, core the pear and cut it into matchsticks. They're going to have to be small. One small pear was more than enough for the dozen or so dates I made. Cut the strips of bacon in half.
Once the dates are done soaking, take them from the tea. Place pear sticks inside the date and wrap in bacon. Slide the toothpick through the date to hold the bacon in place.
I broiled these for a couple minutes, turned them over, broiled a little more, then set the toaster oven to bake for probably another 5 mintues to finish up the bacon.
These were the ingredients used on the show. I looked it up, and like many old time recipes, there are tons of variations. You can soak the dates in just tea, or just brandy (although that may cause trouble in the broiler). Some of the other more popular stuffings I saw were cheese and mango chutney. The cheese is probably real interesting, and I may go with that, or a combo of the cheese and pear. Mango chutney, while it would probably be really good, just seems like a lot of work for something that's so small and doesn't hold a lot of stuffing to begin with. Making them like this was simple enough they can be done whenever. They'd probably be real good thrown on the top shelf of a BBQ, too, just to sit while you're grilling whatever else you're making.