KO EN British Appetizer⏱ 40 minEdit history

Devils on Horseback (Bacon-Wrapped Prunes)

Name: Devils on Horseback (Bacon-Wrapped Prunes)
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 20 min
Total time: 40 min
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: British
Ingredients: 12 prunes; 6 rashers streaky bacon; 12 whole almonds; 30 g Manchego or cheddar; 0.5 tsp black pepper; 12 cocktail sticks; 12 dried apricots

A British savoury: dried fruit wrapped in bacon and baked. Bacon turns up on twenty-five pages of this site and in every one of them it is there for its fat and its savour — nowhere is it used to wrap anything. Here the bacon is the skin, and the skin does three things. Its fat renders out and bastes what is inside, its salt goes inward, and — the part that matters — it shrinks as it cooks and grips the filling tight. Bake it seam side down and it holds without a cocktail stick at all.

Ingredients

4servings

Devils on horseback (makes 12; serves 4 as a starter)
prunes · stoned; dates are traditional too12
streaky bacon · thin-cut, halved crossways6 rashers
whole almonds · optional, one pushed into each prune12
Manchego or cheddar · optional, instead of the almond30 g
black pepper0.5 tsp
cocktail sticks · optional; see the tips12
If you use dried apricots
dried apricots · soaked 20 minutes in warm water or black tea12

Steps

Heat the oven to 200°C. Do not line the tray — the rendered fat pools underneath and fries the base.
⏲ 10 min
Nick each prune open and push in an almond or a piece of cheese. If you are using dried apricots, soak them 20 minutes first and pat them dry: an apricot is far drier than a prune and baked as it comes it scorches before the bacon is done.
⏲ 10 min
Halve the rashers. One piece needs to go one and a half times round the fruit and no more. Wound twice or more, the overlap never cooks through and stays flabby.
⏲ 5 min
Set a prune on the end of a rasher, roll it up, and put it on the tray seam side down. Grind pepper over. A cocktail stick here is only insurance — the bacon tightens on itself as it cooks.
⏲ 5 min
Bake 15 minutes at 200°C, turn them once and give them 5 minutes more. They are done when the bacon has drawn tight and gone deep brown and the fat has rendered out into the tray. Pale and floppy bacon means not yet — that is very nearly the only way this dish fails.
⏲ 15 min
Lift them onto paper, leave them 3 minutes and serve. Left sitting in the tray they take the pooled fat back up. Straight out of the oven the middles are extremely hot, so let them come down a little.
⏲ 3 min

Tips & Variations

Variations

Angels on horseback is the original. Oysters wrapped in bacon are the angels; swapping in dried fruit makes the devils. Escoffier's anges à cheval is the older of the two, and the ko.wikipedia entry this page follows defines the devils as a variant of the angels. Made with oysters there is far more water in them, so bring it down to about 12 minutes at 200°C.
Why it is a starter. A Victorian and Edwardian British dinner had a small salty course after the sweet pudding, called the savoury, and this is a savoury. That is why the sweetness and the salt arrive in one mouthful. It has since moved to the front of the meal as a starter or a canapé.
What goes inside: an almond is there to put some crunch in it, and a piece of Manchego or cheddar is the Spanish dátiles con bacon way. Stilton doubles the salt, so pair it with a milder bacon.
What decides which dried fruit works is water. Prunes and dates keep something under 30% moisture and survive twenty minutes at 200°C. Dried apricots, figs and raisins are drier and need soaking, and raisins are small enough to burn inside the bacon.
Against meatloaf: there the bacon is laid over the top in a lattice, to baste the surface and hold the shape. Here it is wrapped, so the fat runs inward rather than down.
Over fire: skewered and grilled over charcoal like yakitori adds smoke. The rendering fat drips into the flame and deposits soot — the warning in grilling — so set them off to the side of the coals. The oven is much easier.
For a party: wrap them and keep them in the fridge a day ahead. The baking is twenty minutes, so they go in after people arrive.

Tips

Use thin streaky bacon. Thick-cut burns the filling before its fat is out, and back bacon has too little fat either to tighten or to baste.
One and a half turns. More than a double thickness at the overlap and that patch will not cook.
Seam side down. The weight holds it while the fat is still liquid, and no cocktail stick is needed.
Do not line the tray. The pooled fat fries the base.
Bake until the bacon has drawn tight. That is the only judgement in the dish. Pale and floppy means five minutes more.
Onto paper as they come out. Left in the tray they drink the fat back.
Do not season them. The bacon's salt and the fruit's sugar already sit at both ends of balancing flavour's axis. Salt on top of that collapses it.
The middles are very hot. Sugary fruit holds heat for a long time. Three minutes before they go out.