Recipe: Bacon Explosion (Guest Post from Fearless Grill)

Recipe Source: http://www.bbqaddicts.com/blog/recipes/bacon-explosion/

One evening this winter, I’m sitting in bed minding my own business, cleaning out some e-mail before calling it a night, when an e-mail from a friend arrives titled simply “Must…Try”.  Intrigued, I opened the e-mail to find a link to a recipe for a ‘Bacon Explosion.”  After looking at the recipe, I was both fascinated and frightened.  I showed it to my lovely wife, who said, “That’s disgusting”.  I wrote back to my friend and informed him as much, and he said “My wife thinks so too, so it must be good.”  Since it was the middle of winter, I didn’t get a chance to make it right away, since it required several hours in the smoker, but I passed the recipe along to a few other friends who all agreed we needed to have a ‘pork fest’ and try this. 

Last week, the weather had sufficiently improved and schedules coincided enough for Pork Fest to become reality.  In addition to the Bacon Explosion, we had numerous other dishes containing bacon, as well as a really tasty Latin American pulled pork variant.  I did however draw the line at the bacon baklava recipe that Jess was considering making – that sounded really nasty.  Of course, Jess thought the Bacon Explosion was equally nasty, and got to calling it the ‘bacon turd’, based on it’s appearance in the pictures on the original site. 

Since the Bacon Explosion is an original and very … um … unique recipe, I followed it as written, as I was afraid that even the slightest variation could cause instant heart attacks (When explained to my father in law, he said “Why don’t you save yourself the trouble and just kill yourself.)  For the spice rub, I used the leftover rub from the pulled pork I made a few weeks earlier and we had some Dinosaur Barbeque Mutha Sauce in the freezer, so I used that for the BBQ sauce, after running it through the blender to smooth out the chunks.  The butcher shop had regular Italian sausages on sale cheaper than their bulk sausage, so I bought those and just cut them out of their casings.   Because the Bacon I used was already smoked, I decided not to add additional wood chunks to the fire for smoke flavor, which worked out fine. 

The pork fest also gave me additional appreciation for my Big Green Egg, which I used to prepare both the pulled pork and the Bacon Explosions.  After running for nearly 20 hours on one load of lump charcoal to cook the pulled pork, there was enough fuel left to cook the Bacon Explosions for another 2 hours, and there was still some left at the end.  Try that on your gas grill.  

Because we were serving 12 people, and this was the piece-de-resistance, I made two Explosions to make sure we would have enough.  This actually turned out to be unnecessary, as the final product was much larger than it appeared in the pictures.  With all the other food we had, we only went through about a quarter of the second one, though the dog enjoyed some of the leftovers.  The verdict on the Bacon Explosion was generally pretty good, but not fantastic, which is about what I expected for a novelty item like this.  The mix of flavors, including the bacon, sausage, spice rub, BBQ sauce, and more bacon, was interesting.  Surprisingly considering all the fat in this, it came out a bit dry.  I’m not sure that I’d ever make this again, at least not without investing in Lipitor first, but I’m glad we tried it.  It was a fun excuse to get together with friends, and definitely a one of a kind meal. 

Bacon Explosion (Serves 10-12 as an appetizer.  We wouldn’t suggest eating any more than that.  Approx. Cost Per Serving Not Available)

Equipment Required
Big Green Egg or other smoker
Grill brush
Wood for smoking (I used Apple)

2 pounds thick-cut bacon
2 pounds Italian sausage
BBQ sauce
BBQ spice rub

Note:  The source web site has very detailed pictures showing the steps to prepare the Bacon Explosion.  Make sure to check it out if you are going to try this. 

Begin by weaving strips of bacon into a 5x5 square mat.  Try and get this as tight as you can.  If your bacon doesn’t make a square, add some additional pieces to get it there. 
Sprinkle your bacon mat liberally with your BBQ spice rub
Take your sausage and cover the bacon mat with it, pressing down to create a patty of uniform thickness all the way across. 
Take any leftover bacon and fry it up to your desired level of doneness.  Layer the fried bacon on top of the sausage.
Add BBQ sauce on top of the 2nd bacon layer, and some additional spice rub too.
Begin the process of rolling up the Bacon Explosion by separating the sausage layer from the bacon mat, and rolling it toward the opposite side, pressing out any air pockets along the way.  Then, roll in the other direction along with the woven bacon mat.  Sit it with the seam on the bottom to help hold it together. 
Sprinkle the outside with some additional BBQ rub
Cook at 225 degrees Fahrenheit for about 1 hour per inch of thickness, or until the internal temperature reads 165 degrees. 
Coat with BBQ sauce and serve by cutting into rounds about 1 inch thick. 
Spend the next week in the gym .

Comments

[The Duo Dishes]

We saw this for the first time on a website that poked fun at a lot of crazy food combinations! So funny it's back again. The bacon weave is a hit.

[jeff]

I love bacon ok hell I am obsessed with bacon (been known to get into heated debates over which wood and cures make the best smoked bacon). However, well I have no words to say but a weird desire to try this.

[Sophie]

MMMMM...This looks really appetizing!! Yum Yum Yum !!!!

[Fearless Kitchen]

Sophie - Thanks. It's the kind of thing you instantly love or hate...

Jeff - Next time we have a Pork Fest, you're invited :) Seriously, I think we just overdid it with the bacon... do give it a try yourself.

Duo - This is definitely the kind of thing that should get made fun of. :) The funny thing is that my husband had never worked with raw bacon before, or even seen it. He wanted to cut off all the fat.

[generic viagra]

I love bacon, even when I know that is a little bad for my health, I try to eat bacon 4 times a week, is it too much???

[Fearless Kitchen]

Generic - Uh... is this a trick question? I guess that there are lots of people who have lived a long time on a diet of bacon, but for most of us that would increase our risk of problems down the road.

[bacon recipes fan]

I have seen a recipe on the net in which a bacon-wrapped chicken and a bacon-wrapped duck are cooked in a bacon-wrapped turkey!

[Fearless Kitchen]

Bacon - Wow. That sounds perfectly repulsive to me. I bet my husband would just love it, though :)