G
Grogbelly
Guest
So I had never heard of a "fatty" in the BBQ world before I started poking around on this forum... but after meandering from here to Cowgirl's blog page, I became interested... so last weekend I decided to make one. I started with some relatively conservative ingredients as it was a first effort, but it came out beautifully:
1) I started with a couple white potatoes, a white onion, and some red pepper, all diced up:
2) Put those into a frying pan all together along with some butter and "Pinky Powder" (my best friend's secret signature spice mixture that he's used in his restaurant for close to 25 years now):
3) Cooked until the potatoes were softened and delicious:
4) After it cooled in the pan, I added some shredded cheddar and stuffed it all into my version of the Fatty Piston (details on that to follow, but thanks to Cowgirl again for the idea). You can see in the background of this pic the canning funnel that I tried to use initially (miserable failure). It turned out that a rolled up (cheapo) plain paper plate made an excellent funnel (it's amazing how many uses these cheap paper plates have that don't include serving food... and if you're recycling conscious, you can always use them to help light your charcoal in the chimney starter which is what I did with the one I used for this). I placed that into my fridge vertically for about an hour to cool:
5) Next I rolled out 1.5 lbs of "home made" pork sausage from my local butcher using Cowgirl's "gallon zip top bag" technique. This went into the fridge to cool for about 45 mins or so. This pic shows the "post chill" step where I have cut the bag open and added some "Pinky Powder" to it:
6) Meanwhile I created a bacon weave out of some "homemade" bacon from a local butcher and covered that in plastic and set it into the fridge to cool for about 30 minutes:
7) After an hour chilling, the fatty piston and sausage wrap came out of the fridge:
8) All rolled up and ends tucked, snug as a bug in a rug:
9) And onto the bacon weave on the bias:
10) Wrapped up all cozy and then cinched down in plastic wrap nice and tight for another approximately 30 minute chill in the fridge. Note that even though the pics don't show it, I offset the "seams" of the sausage and bacon layers - don't want two seams to line right up with each other.:
11) Then onto the Weber kettle all set up for smoking, bacon seam side down. Note that you can see the effects of having this wrapped tightly in plastic and chilled again has had on the overall shape and form of the fatty - see how the bacon is all nice and flat and smooth relative to how it was when I just finished wrapping it - this is a technique I will try to describe later as well for any who might not be aware of how to do it - you veterans will be well familiar I am sure:
12) Here we are at about an hour in, smoking steadily between 230 and 240 degrees F (the foil things in the background are just wrapped chunks of hickory, not sure about this technique but it seemed like the smart thing to do so that I don't have wild fluctuations in temperature by letting the hickory chunks burst into flame... could use some advice and/or more experience there):
13) Here it is after about a 5 hour smoke, and maybe 20 mnutes' rest. The internal temp is 165 F, not too shabby. I must say, I am very pleased with the look of this:
14) I wanted to let it rest more because when I poked it with the thermometer to check internal temp, it was leaking juices a bit more than I wanted, so I made a sandwich for dinner and let this cool on the counter for another hour before putting it into the refrigerator for the night. This pic is of the slices I cut the next day for dinner. The "bacon weave" seam is directly on the bottom, note the offset seam of the sausage layer that is plainly visible in this pic:
15) Here it is on the plate after nuking the slices a bit in the microwave. For some reason I felt the need to have a huge salad with this... but even then, couldn't resist adding some shredded cheese to my greens along with some julienned carrot and the last of my home grown tomatoes:
Washed all this down with an ice cold IPA and it was deeeelicious!
Next time I'll use a bit less sausage, probably 1 to 1.25 lbs rather than a full 1.5 lbs and I'll also taper the ends of the sausage layer where it overlaps so the end product is more uniform.
This makes an absurdly delicious breakfast by the way too... I've enjoyed a slice of it warmed up and placed on a lightly toasted kaiser roll with a fried egg on top... mmmmmmm! No pics of that I'm afraid, I gobbled it down too quickly.
1) I started with a couple white potatoes, a white onion, and some red pepper, all diced up:
2) Put those into a frying pan all together along with some butter and "Pinky Powder" (my best friend's secret signature spice mixture that he's used in his restaurant for close to 25 years now):
3) Cooked until the potatoes were softened and delicious:
4) After it cooled in the pan, I added some shredded cheddar and stuffed it all into my version of the Fatty Piston (details on that to follow, but thanks to Cowgirl again for the idea). You can see in the background of this pic the canning funnel that I tried to use initially (miserable failure). It turned out that a rolled up (cheapo) plain paper plate made an excellent funnel (it's amazing how many uses these cheap paper plates have that don't include serving food... and if you're recycling conscious, you can always use them to help light your charcoal in the chimney starter which is what I did with the one I used for this). I placed that into my fridge vertically for about an hour to cool:
5) Next I rolled out 1.5 lbs of "home made" pork sausage from my local butcher using Cowgirl's "gallon zip top bag" technique. This went into the fridge to cool for about 45 mins or so. This pic shows the "post chill" step where I have cut the bag open and added some "Pinky Powder" to it:
6) Meanwhile I created a bacon weave out of some "homemade" bacon from a local butcher and covered that in plastic and set it into the fridge to cool for about 30 minutes:
7) After an hour chilling, the fatty piston and sausage wrap came out of the fridge:
8) All rolled up and ends tucked, snug as a bug in a rug:
9) And onto the bacon weave on the bias:
10) Wrapped up all cozy and then cinched down in plastic wrap nice and tight for another approximately 30 minute chill in the fridge. Note that even though the pics don't show it, I offset the "seams" of the sausage and bacon layers - don't want two seams to line right up with each other.:
11) Then onto the Weber kettle all set up for smoking, bacon seam side down. Note that you can see the effects of having this wrapped tightly in plastic and chilled again has had on the overall shape and form of the fatty - see how the bacon is all nice and flat and smooth relative to how it was when I just finished wrapping it - this is a technique I will try to describe later as well for any who might not be aware of how to do it - you veterans will be well familiar I am sure:
12) Here we are at about an hour in, smoking steadily between 230 and 240 degrees F (the foil things in the background are just wrapped chunks of hickory, not sure about this technique but it seemed like the smart thing to do so that I don't have wild fluctuations in temperature by letting the hickory chunks burst into flame... could use some advice and/or more experience there):
13) Here it is after about a 5 hour smoke, and maybe 20 mnutes' rest. The internal temp is 165 F, not too shabby. I must say, I am very pleased with the look of this:
14) I wanted to let it rest more because when I poked it with the thermometer to check internal temp, it was leaking juices a bit more than I wanted, so I made a sandwich for dinner and let this cool on the counter for another hour before putting it into the refrigerator for the night. This pic is of the slices I cut the next day for dinner. The "bacon weave" seam is directly on the bottom, note the offset seam of the sausage layer that is plainly visible in this pic:
15) Here it is on the plate after nuking the slices a bit in the microwave. For some reason I felt the need to have a huge salad with this... but even then, couldn't resist adding some shredded cheese to my greens along with some julienned carrot and the last of my home grown tomatoes:
Washed all this down with an ice cold IPA and it was deeeelicious!
Next time I'll use a bit less sausage, probably 1 to 1.25 lbs rather than a full 1.5 lbs and I'll also taper the ends of the sausage layer where it overlaps so the end product is more uniform.
This makes an absurdly delicious breakfast by the way too... I've enjoyed a slice of it warmed up and placed on a lightly toasted kaiser roll with a fried egg on top... mmmmmmm! No pics of that I'm afraid, I gobbled it down too quickly.