For the 4th of July each year, my husband and I like to serve our guests something tasty and unique off the grill. One year it was mead-marinated tri-tip steaks. Another year we did candied chicken teriyaki skewers. This year, we decided to go for the gusto and cook up a variation on a famous internet recipe: The Bacon Explosion.
We started on Saturday night, cooking up a pound and a half of bacon. We were up until almost midnight getting it crispy, and didn't take any photos. Our bad.
On Sunday afternoon we got out the pile of cooked bacon and got to work.
We read a lot of blogs and watched various You Tube accounts of people's experience with this recipe before giving it a try. The following picture (with the big point and grin) is in honor of this guy.
I opened up our three pound package of thick cut bacon, and set about weaving a 5x5 strip lattice with all the enthusiasm of a Girl Scout fashioning her first sit-upon (probably more, because, let's ace it -- sit-upons aren't made of BACON).
As I weaved the bacon together I reminisced about how I had a loom when I was a kid. Good times. Not sure hubby was all that impressed by my prowess, however.
Below is my dainty (did someone say sissy?) attempt to "rub" a Tablespoon of BBQ rub into the bacon.
Next we open up the beef. Here is where we've altered the recipe from its original form. We are using beef instead of ground sausage, because what we want to serve up is the ultimate bacon burger patty. You can see we got very lean beef. With all that bacon, who needs the extra fat?
I traded off with Bryan, who formed the beef into a large square patty with the quickness of a ninja.
I used Bull's-Eye brown sugar and hickory. It was very tasty and contains no high fructose corn syrup. Which is good, because if our heart doesn't stop from all the grease, the last thing we want to be worrying about is some off-beat sugar.
We seasoned the outside with the same rub, and topped the cheese one with a few shreds so we would know which was which.
And then promptly went outside to pose with our three logs of raw meat:
We were pretty dang excited about it, too. Try making one of these yourself. The effect of that much bacon is great anticipation and enthusiasm. See if I'm wrong.
When it was time, Bryan put one into the smoker. We staggered the start times to allow time to cut and serve each one when they were done.
There is the first one ready to cook.
We set the temperature to 220* and went about the rest of our party while we waited the 2 1/2 hours while each one cooked.
In went the cheesy one next.
Now there is a little lapse in photography. The reason being that there was so much excitement about it coming out of the smoker, that we didn't take many pictures at this point. Just pretend that we took a picture of our thermometer in the center of the thing reading an internal temperature of 165 degrees, ok? Because that is how we knew it was done. That, and the saliva running down everyone's chins.
Here is my VERY happy husband with his bacon burger success:
From this time forward people got in line and were served up a slice of beefy, bacon-y, barbaque-y goodness.
Some people made them into burgers. Others ate it ala carte and mocked those who would mess with perfection.
It was by far one of the best burgers I've ever had. Not greasy, like I would have expected. But moist, flavorful, and delicious.
We will definitely want to make these again in the future. Three Explosions fed about 30 people. Each log cost us about $10 to make. And the time involved in the prep wasn't considerable for such a conversation piece. Now that we've done them (and won't have to take a ton of pictures next time) we could easily form a log (if the bacon was pre-cooked) in under 15 minutes.
Everyone at the party seemed to think that these were delicious and pretty epic.
So, who is going to try one? Who has already made one? I look forward to hearing from you!
Carnivores, enjoy!
6 comments:
Wow, I don't have the grilling prowess for such a master piece. I'll just have to settle for a long distance drool fest. Looks like you had a great 4th.
Oh my goodness. That looks amazing and delicious! Thanks for the illustrated instructions. I will have to try this some time!
This looks epic and delish!
You guys still alive after that meatfest?? LOL
@Aimee: Yep! We were surprised to find it really wasn't any more greasy than a burger at a restaurant. :) We are already planning another event to make this again!
Wow dear nice presentation.......
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