Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Bacon Explosion!!

I know I'm late in getting this up, but I had a bunch of other pressing priorities that, frankly, came before writing this down for a the few folks that read it, and mainly my own amusement.

I'm writing in three parts today: Bacon Explosion, Smoked Bacon Mac & Cheese and Crappy Brisket. So you can decide which of the three (or all, or none) you want to experiment with yourself.

Bacon explosion sounds like a cardiologist's fantasy come true -- and it probably is. But it's oh so yummy and depending on the serving size, you can control how much you're clogging your arteries at any one time. I started out using the base recipe from the BBQ Addicts (http://www.bbqaddicts.com/blog/recipes/bacon-explosion/). They'll even ship you one if you don't want to hassle with making it yourself. I tweaked their recipe a little to make mine a little sweeter. My wife complains that I spice things up too much, so I erred on the side of sweet this time.

I followed their recipe:

2 lbs of thick sliced bacon
2 pounds bulk mild Italian sausage
Rub
Sauce
and I added maple syrup and some cinnamon/sugar.

I also used a sweeter rub (McCormick's Grill Masters Sweet and Smoky which is all I could find in the rather limited selection at the supermarket -- it had brown sugar as an ingredient listed) and I used some cheap "Jack Daniels" Sweet Hickory sauce. (The only relation to Jack Daniels seems to be that the Heinz Ketchup folks licensed the name and logo for their bottle of very routine sauce). Go with whatever is sweet and cheap.

I laid out my bacon lattice on wax paper to make it easy to roll up. That worked wonders. I used 7 pieces on each side of the lattice. The BBQ Addicts page shows a 5x5 lattice. I thought that would be too small, so I bumped it up by two. I think you can pretty much do what you like as long as it's sort of squarish.


From there I sprinkled a pretty good dab of rub on what will become the inside top layer. I also sprinkled some cinnamon sugar on the bacon at this point to bring up the sweetness. Same kind you'd use if you were making cinnamon toast.

Then I added a layer of Johnsonville bulk mild Italian sausage. I might try some other kind of sausage next time -- maybe just some standard bulk breakfast sausage from Jimmy Dean or someone. I thought the Italian flavor conflicted a little, but that was me. No one else seemed to mind. Maybe because I'd intended a sweeter explosion...


I used two pounds and that was perfect. Made a nice two-inch layer. Make sure it's flat and well spaced so you don't end up overcooking one spot or undercooking another.

Then I added about 12 slices of cooked bacon. The recipe isn't specific, but my wife told me that six pieces looked skimpy. So I bumped to 12 and then added a drizzle (rather a bunch of blobs) of the pseudo-Jack Daniels BBQ sauce. I also added a drizzle of maple syrup over the top. In hindsight, I might've used more syrup and less sauce.




So here's what it looked like, and here's what it looks like rolled up. The wax paper here made it really easy to roll up and pull away. I just wrapped it tight and pressed it together, sealing the ends. I was wondering if I needed toothpicks or anything to hold it together. Nope. It'll hold by itself as long as you don't play football with it. I did grill it with the open side down and it sealed itself.


I left mine on the smoker about three hours, flipping once, maybe twice, and added a layer of the faux-Jack Daniels sauce for the last 30 minutes.



This is how it looked finished.





Taste: Delicious!!

And if you slice it in about 1/2 inch slices, I think you'll end up with about two slices of bacon and maybe 4 to 6 ounces of sausage. All-in-all, not as bad as you might think. But certainly outstanding from a taste perspective.




 





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