GrillinFool
Full Fledged Farker
- Joined
- May 8, 2009
- Location
- St. Louis
For those unfamiliar with a Slinger or St. Louis Slinger.
This recipe, write up, and pictures were done by BBQ Brethren's very own King.
How does one make the iconic fatty on the grill? How do we, the Grillin Fools, put our mark on such a legendary St. Louis dish? Well, we skip the burger patties, wrap up the eggs, chili, onions, cheese and hash browns in a pound of pork and smoke it for a couple hours. I'm not sure we improved the recipe, but we definitely made it our own.
Step by step instructions including lots of pics, and of course some teaser pics:
For the link averse, the full write up without the pics:
This recipe, write up, and pictures were done by BBQ Brethren's very own King.
How does one make the iconic fatty on the grill? How do we, the Grillin Fools, put our mark on such a legendary St. Louis dish? Well, we skip the burger patties, wrap up the eggs, chili, onions, cheese and hash browns in a pound of pork and smoke it for a couple hours. I'm not sure we improved the recipe, but we definitely made it our own.
Step by step instructions including lots of pics, and of course some teaser pics:
For the link averse, the full write up without the pics:
You’ve seen fatty’s on this site before, but here’s my take on an essential BBQ dish. Moreover, if you’re from St. Louis, you most certainly know what a slinger is. An original St. Louis slinger can be found at a late night diner such as the City Diner located downtown. Those who order the slinger commonly use it for a hangover remedy. Because no one in their right mind would order a plate with hashed browns, eggs, meat patties smothered in chili and topped with cheese and onions…except me. In this installment of “Choking Your Capillaries Into Submission”, I’m making a slinger wrapped fatty.
Ingredients:
1lb pork sausage
2 eggs (4 are pictured)
1 cup frozen hash browns
1 cup chili
½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
¼ cup diced onion
canola oil
sea salt
coarse black pepper
Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 2 hours
Arthur’s Note ~ The chili is my own recipe. You can use any store bought chili for a replacement. However, you may use my bonus recipe, exclusively at GrillinFools.com:
Arthur’s Chili recipe #033
Ingredients
1lb ground chuck
1lb smoked brisket (diced)
1 medium diced onion
1 chopped jalapeno
4 cloves minced garlic
6tbs chili powder
2tbs cumin
4tsp salt
1 large can diced tomatoes with juice
1/2 dark beer
2 cans of chili beans
Chili Instructions
1. Brown the meat with garlic, onion and jalapenos in skillet. Add 2tbs chili powder and 1tbs cumin.
2. In a blender, add tomatoes, remaining chili powder and cumin, salt and beer and blend well.
3. Combine meat and sauce into a chili pot on medium heat for 30 min.
4. Add beans.
5. Simmer on low heat for 2 hours
Fatty Instructions:
So, we begin with the pork sausage. I put all of the sausage in a 1 gallon Ziploc storage baggie. I flatten it out while at the same time taking out all of the air pockets:
***Editor’s note ~ Big fan of smoked brisket in chili. I have a couple pounds in my freezer right now, just begging to go in the chili pot***
The sausage is flattened until it is even all around the Ziploc. I suggest using more sausage, maybe another pound, because the walls were too thin for me. In addition, use some non-stick spray before putting the sausage in the baggie, you’ll see why next.
***Editor’s note ~ From the pics below, it looks like you nailed it with just the one pound, Arthur***
Subsequently, I cut around the edge of the storage baggie and simply lift the top flap. Actually, it wasn’t that simple because the plastic was sticking to the sausage. Non-stick spray may have prevented this:
The hash browns and eggs were prepared in my cast iron skillet. I poured some oil into the skillet for the hash browns. Once they were almost done, I started on the eggs. Add salt and pepper to taste. Then I combined the browns and eggs and poured them directly onto the sausage.
Next, add the chili cheese and onion:
After that, roll up the sausage into a tube. Rub your sausage *chuckles*, to make sure you cover up any holes or crevasses the filling can seep out of.
***Editor’s note ~ I actually recommend slapping it real good all the way around like making hamburger patties. Any crevices and the cheese will ooze out***
At this point, the fatty is unstable and too delicate to put on the grill because it is warm and mushy. So, I wrap it up with plastic wrap to hold its’ shape and I put it in the freezer for an hour to firm it up a bit. It’s much easier to handle when it’s partially frozen:
In the meantime, I set the Grill Manufacturer that Shall Not Be Named for indirect cooking. The cook chamber temperature should be around 375 degrees with the air vents wide open. Make sure the vents on the lid are over the meat on the opposite side of the charcoal so the smoke wood has to pass over the meat on the way out of the grill.
Place the fatty on the cool side of the grill and put the lid on:
I used a huge chunk of peach wood for smoke:
The fatty cooked for 2 hours. Only once did I open the grill to put more charcoal in. However, I did not touch the meat. This is important because when the weather is extremely cold like it was this evening, I don’t want to lose all that heat because it takes a while to rebuild it. And here is the result at the 2 hour mark:
Here is a close up after I took the fatty inside the house:
***Editor’s note ~ See how Arthur brought it in on foil? Keep foil around when doing a cheese stuffed fatty. If you do get a crevice, and cheese starts leaking out, put the fatty on a sheet of foil and poke a couple small holes in it so the cheese stays but the grease drips through***
Finally, the money shot after it cooled down a little bit:
I had some leftovers the next morning and I tried to get a little fancy with plating a fatty:
I made a fatty one other time and it was alright, but this fatty was a knockout. Next time, I have to remember to make the changes I mentioned above, but it’s nothing that would have changed the outcome of this delicacy. Fatties are also something that you can freeze and serve the next morning. Of course, you can always reheat one after partying all night. It may not be something the doctor ordered, in fact, (as Scott would say) you just might make the doctor cry.
