I was inspired by Attjack’s post i-smoked-my-first-fatty from a year ago, and decided to take a shot at this one. I went with an Italian theme, rather than his kraut and brats style. I made up some store bought ground pork with an Italian sausage spice recipe I use for patties. I used store bought sweet Italian sausage links in the middle, surrounded by sautéed peppers, onions, mushrooms and fresh basil leaves. This was layered on top of mozzarella, enclosed in the ground sausage mix and wrapped with the bacon weave. I put it on the PBC with a probe inserted into one the internal sausage links and let the PBC work its voodoo magic.
It took about 1:30 to reach the 150 mark. I decided to crank the heat to try to crisp the bacon a bit, so I pulled the rebars and cracked the top. I let it climb to 165 and then pulled it. I sliced about half of it up, and it smelled amazing. As for the taste, I was thinking that the sausage mix I made was so flavorful, it completely overshadowed the other layers. I could barely even taste the bacon. And the store bought sausage in the center was underwhelming to say the least. Then it occurred to me that at the same time I was thinking this, I had already plowed through two hearty slices and was well into a third!
I have a brand new grinder/stuffer and 11 lbs. of boneless pork butt thawing in the fridge for my first attempt at stuffing sausage. That adventure will go in another post, but I’m looking forward to trying this again with my home ground pork and self-made sausage. I also want to take a shot at bacon, but I don’t think I would be able to slice it thin enough to weave and wrap for something like this. Anybody done that?
Note the introduction of Jamesons Black Barrel to the process at this point...
It took about 1:30 to reach the 150 mark. I decided to crank the heat to try to crisp the bacon a bit, so I pulled the rebars and cracked the top. I let it climb to 165 and then pulled it. I sliced about half of it up, and it smelled amazing. As for the taste, I was thinking that the sausage mix I made was so flavorful, it completely overshadowed the other layers. I could barely even taste the bacon. And the store bought sausage in the center was underwhelming to say the least. Then it occurred to me that at the same time I was thinking this, I had already plowed through two hearty slices and was well into a third!
I have a brand new grinder/stuffer and 11 lbs. of boneless pork butt thawing in the fridge for my first attempt at stuffing sausage. That adventure will go in another post, but I’m looking forward to trying this again with my home ground pork and self-made sausage. I also want to take a shot at bacon, but I don’t think I would be able to slice it thin enough to weave and wrap for something like this. Anybody done that?
Note the introduction of Jamesons Black Barrel to the process at this point...
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