Rumaki recipe

If you search for a rumaki recipe, you'll discover that true rumaki is made with chicken livers. Ummm... yuk. I have a steadfast Life Rule; I do not eat organs. Never on purpose anyway.

This is a rumaki recipe that I got from an old friend. (She's not old, I've just known her for years.) It was a pretty big hit at the party last night, so I share it here.

I bought canned whole water chestnuts and drained them. I cut sliced bacon (regular, not the thick stuff) into thirds, and took a 1/3 slice of bacon and wrapped it around a water chestnut, securing it with a toothpick. Place in a baking dish and bake at 375 degrees F. until bacon is nice and crispy. Drain grease. (Which is a difficult thing to do with a pan full of toothpicked items, so I just took them all out of the pan, drained the grease, washed the pan out and put all the little critters back in.) In a separate bowl, mix well a sauce of 1 bottle Heinz chili sauce, 1 cup real mayo & 1 cup brown sugar. Pour over rumaki and bake at 375 again until bubbly.

I had a large bake pan, larger than the typical cake pan, and I used about 5 or 6 cans of water chestnuts and 2 packages of bacon. I also kinda sort doubled the sauce, more like 1.5 times, and it was plenty. I had to bake them in 2 separate pans, but once done, they all fit into the one big pan. I would say a single recipe would be about 3 cans of water chestnuts and 1 pkg of bacon, use a regular cake loaf pan.

Yum.

It's a very rich hors d'oeuvre, and I noticed it was more the men eating it than the women. Probably the bacon thing. A couple of the guys told their wives to get the recipe. Yep, we're the typical "mostly the wives do the cooking" crowd. Not 100% across-the-board, mind, but the majority... I also didn't see any of the men oohing and aahing over the pretty blue washer & dryer. It is what it is.

Anyway, the rumaki, sans chicken liver, was really good. When I was packing Kev's lunch this morning, he asked if there was any left that I brought home. I just said, "you have got to be kidding." Oh, right.