I mentioned in a previous Bitch and BBQ post that I would cover all of our adventures – including the misadventures – as we BBQ our way through the world of bacon this summer.
It sure didn’t take long for the first misadventure to occur.
I was in Idaho visiting family last week. After spending a few hours driving and fishing in the mountains with my brother, I suggested that we BBQ for dinner when we got back to his house, despite the fact that we didn’t have any bottles of Bitch to make it a proper Bitch and BBQ session. He thought BBQing sounded like a good idea. But even though we were in general agreement about dinner plans, little did I know we were far from being on the same page.
I decided we would have bacon wrapped cheese stuffed chorizos for dinner. Boise has a large Basque population, and most grocery stores carry delicious authentic Basque chorizos (which is second only to getting fresh handmade chorizos from Basque friends). So we stopped by Albertson’s on the way home to pick up the goods. Then we picked up our other brother so he could join us for the evening. Once we were back at the house, my brothers stayed in the garage to unpack the truck while I went inside to start preparing dinner.
Knowing that I needed to get the grill fired up before I started working on food preparation, I began my search for the grill since I wasn’t sure where my brother had put one since moving into the house last Fall. I started by looking on the back patio. And then the side patio. And then I went out to the garage…at which point I was informed that my brother in fact does not own an outdoor grill (except for a small thing he occasionally takes camping, but he didn’t have any charcoal at home anyways). Apparently when I had suggested earlier that we grill for dinner, he had it in mind that we would just use his indoor electric grill – something he failed to mention at the time.
Have you ever had one of those moments when you wonder how it is possible that you are related to someone? Well this was one of those.
After recovering from the disappointment and shock due to the discovery of my brother’s deficiency (at least I know what to get him for Christmas now), I went back into the house and began to familiarize myself with the indoor grill. Even though I had my doubts about it’s ability to step up to the challenge, I decided to give it a go anyways.
In preparing the chorizos (which need to be pre-cooked, by the way), I sliced each chorizo in half, stuffed it with shredded mozzarella and cheddar cheese, and wrapped each chorizo in bacon (it actually took 1 1/2 strips of bacon per chorizo).
With the grill set to medium-high, I placed the chorizos on the rack. But after a few minutes it was clear that the attempt at an indoor BBQ was going to turn into a disaster, as the grill just couldn’t heat the chorizos fast enough before the bacon started to fall off, and it was difficult to control the level of heat. So before things reached the point of no return, I decided to abort the mission and moved the chorizos to the oven to finish the job.
By this point, both of my brothers had joined me in the kitchen. All of us were pretty hungry and cranky, and of course each of us thinks we know more than the others, so the process of moving the chorizos to the oven almost resulted in an all-out sibling brawl. But it wasn’t anything that couldn’t be fixed by a few cans of beer (as evidenced by the case of Coors Light on the counter in the photos), so meal preparation continued.
I baked the chorizos in the oven for 10 minutes at 350 degrees, and then broiled them on high for another five minutes since it was going to be difficult to turn the chorizos without cheese melting all over the place.
The rest of the process was relatively disaster-free, except for when we discovered that the baking sheet I grabbed in a rush to move the chorizos to the oven didn’t have a lip on two sides, and bacon grease began to run over the sides after a few minutes of cooking. After moving the chorizos to a more appropriate baking sheet, we had much smoother sailing until dinner was finally ready.
So despite a few challenges, a lack of Bitch (the liquid form anyways), and no outdoor grill, we still managed to piece together a pretty decent meal. Because when all is said and done, it’s pretty hard to screw up chorizos, cheese and bacon. And boy were they tasty and worth the wait (even if they would have been better prepared on an outdoor grill).