The Bacon Explosion: Now That's Good Barbecue!
Just when you thought you'd seen everything possible on the barbecue grill, here's something new: the Bacon Explosion Saturday, June 02, 2018
To many of us, the idea of a Bacon Explosion involves, perhaps, the unfortunate destruction of a butcher shop. Luckily, the pork bomb described here isn't an actual incendiary, but a culinary masterpiece achievable by any careful barbecuer. Here's the recipe!
The Ingredients:
Two pounds of thick-cut bacon (none of that wimpy packaged stuff from the supermarket)
Two pounds of ground pork sausage (chorizo, andouille, or whatever turns your crank)
Barbecue rub
Barbecue sauce
The Procedure:
First, weave together ten or twelve of the bacon strips into a tight square. By weave, I mean weave 'em together like you would the strips of grass for a basket. Once you've got the weave in place, douse it liberally with your favorite barbecue seasoning.
Next, spread your ground sausage evenly across the bacon weave, making sure the layer is of uniform thickness. For a bit more flavor, work in some of your favorite barbecue sauce as you go.
You'll have some bacon left over from the weave, so now's the time to fry it up however you like it. After it cools a bit, crumble it across your bacon weave/sausage concoction, and shake on a little more seasoning. Dribble on some more sauce, too.
Here's the hard part: you now have to carefully detach the sausage layer from the bacon layer, and roll it up as tightly as possible. Include everything BUT the bacon weave. Pinch the ends together to seal the sausage loaf, then carefully roll it up backward into the bacon weave.
Sprinkle on a little more rub, and it's ready for the final step.
The Grilling:
Carefully set your pork bomb on the grill, and cook it on a smoky hickory fire at a minimum of 225 degrees, until the center's at least 165 degrees (gotta get all that sausage cooked). A good rule of thumb is that this will take about an hour for each inch of thickness—so a three-inch bomb will take three hours.
Slather on all the barbecue sauce you care to, and if you're after a nice glaze, coat it with a thin layer of sauce just before taking it off the grill, enough to reduce down to a cracklin' thin sweet layer in just a few minutes.
Now that it's cooked, all that's left to do is slice it into quarter-inch to half-inch rounds and eat! It makes for a great sandwich, too.
For a step-by-step illustrated procedure, click here.
Bon appétit! We think you'll enjoy building your own Bacon Explosion, and we know you'll enjoy eating it.
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