Barbecue Tricks

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Bacon Crust Pizza How to Make Meat Lovers Pizza

Yes it’s a twisted concept: bacon crust pizza. Or maybe a woven concept.

Bacon as the crust of a pizza? Is it really necessary?

Yes. And it’s amazing.

WATCH The Pizza Video HERE

This came about in the search for low carb pizza options like the BBQ Cauliflower pizza here. 

The trick with a bacon crust -or any bacon – on a grill is avoiding flare ups. Go low and slow.

We used a Traeger pellet cooker for the bacon and always recommend using smoke and indirect low heat for bacon. In the home, a lot of people will now cook bacon in the oven instead of a skillet for similar reasons.

bacon crust pizza
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Bacon Crust Pizza

For low carb pizza fans. Or high bacon fans. The key to using bacon crust is in the weave.

Ingredients

  • 1 package grocery bacon
  • 3 tablespoons pizza sauce
  • ½ red onion (thinly sliced)
  • 3 whole (canned) tomatoes hand crushed
  • 1 cup fresh mozzarella
  • ½ green bell pepper (thinly sliced)
  • Fresh basil

Instructions

  1. Weave bacon on parchment paper for easy handling. Use chilled or refrigerated bacon for easy handling.
  2. Cut bacon weave square into a round using a second – cover- sheet of parchment and a medium to large bowl. Reserve trimmed bacon.
  3. Chop ¼ red onion and sautee with chopped remaining bacon until caramelized.
  4. Smoke bacon weave in smoker at 350 degrees F for an hour.
  5. Top bacon crust with additional ingredients. One initial thin bottom layer of cheese helps to minimize leaks and softness.
  6. Add fresh basil at end of cook.
  7. Allow 10 minutes to rest and allow bottom layer to firm up before serving.Makes 4 hearty slices

SMOKED BACON CRUST PIZZA

1 package grocery bacon

3 tablespoons pizza sauce

½ red onion (thinly sliced)

3 whole (canned) tomatoes hand crushed

1 cup fresh mozzarella

½ green bell pepper (thinly sliced)

Fresh basil

 

 

 

Weave bacon on parchment paper for easy handling. Use chilled or refrigerated bacon for easy handling.

bacon crust pizzaCut bacon weave square into a round using a second – cover- sheet of parchment and a medium to large bowl. Reserve trimmed bacon.

Chop ¼ red onion and sautee with chopped remaining bacon until caramelized.

Smoke bacon weave in smoker at 350 degrees F for an hour.

Top bacon crust with additional ingredients. One initial thin bottom layer of cheese helps to minimize leaks and softness. Add fresh basil at end of cook.

Allow 10 minutes to rest and allow bottom layer to firm up before serving.

Makes 4 hearty slices

Featured

Bacon Time! Bacon Recipe on GrateTV

This week the http://GrateTV.com BBQ and Grill Show covers a bacon recipe that adds a bit of a twist to the BLT.  Call it a P-L-T.  That’s PIGCANDY lettuce and tomato.   We’ve talked about Pig Candy before (succulent, sweet and delicious candied bacon).

We stacked it up with a sweet Hawaiian roll with a fresh garden tomato and lettuce.   Simple but awesome.

Plus we announce the winner of the Island Grill Stone from the Pizza show.

Featured

Grilling Bacon Tricks

Bacon Grill

Photo:Flickr/sjsharktank

The Art of Grilling Bacon Wrapped Food
By Bobby Frankel

One of the techniques one needs to master before becoming a barbecue professional is how to grill bacon wrapped foods. Bacon is used to wrap seafood (shrimp and scallops), vegetables (cheese stuffed peppers) and meats such as filets of beef and pork. Wrapping boneless and skinless stuffed chicken thighs in bacon is also gaining popularity. However grilling bacon wrapped foods is not a straightforward endeavor. The two biggest challenges you face when grilling bacon wrapped foods is preventing grease fires and getting the bacon finished at the same time as the food it is wrapped around.

Grease fires are extremely common when cooking bacon wrapped foods. If dripping bacon fat comes into contact with lit charcoal or propane flames them a flare up fire is inevitable. The easiest way to deal with situation is to always cook bacon wrapped food with indirect heat. If the bacon is not directly over a heat source then the probability of a grease fire is greatly minimized. When grilling with indirect heat it is a good idea to use a disposable aluminum drip pan underneath the food. The foil pan will catch any grease and make subsequent clean up much easier.

Once you have taken steps to minimize grease fires you can start working on getting your bacon to cook at the same rate as the food it is wrapped around. This is most easily accomplished by using thinly sliced bacon instead of the more expensive thick cut varieties. This is not as important if you are grilling food that takes 20-30 minutes to finish such as pork tenderloin but is critical if you are working with quick cooking foods like shrimp and scallops.

A second trick to employ with quick cooking food is to partially precook your bacon before wrapping. You can put a few slices of bacon in paper towels and microwave on high for one minute to get you bacon about halfway done cooking. The only drawback to this approach is that it is easy to overcook the bacon which makes it extremely difficult to wrap around your food. A better approach is to blanch the bacon in boiling water for one minute. The blanching approach takes a little more work but helps make sure the bacon remains pliable enough to use as a wrapper.

The final tip for grilling bacon wrapped food is to pay particular attention to your seasonings. Most bacon has a very high salt content. This means that the amount of extra salt you use to season your food should be kept to a minimum.

With a little practice you can avoid grease fires and get your bacon cooked at the same time as the food it is wrapped around. Master these skills and you are one step closer to becoming a grill master.

I am an avid griller who loves to write! I run web sites about Weber grills and pork tenderloins because that’s just the sort of thing I enjoy. I invite you to visit my other sites and take a look!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Bobby_Frankel
http://EzineArticles.com/?The-Art-of-Grilling-Bacon-Wrapped-Food&id=6945314

 

 

GrateTV

Pork Shoulder and Butt and Bacon Unwrapped

Click Thru To Watch complete video

In this epsiode, Three time SC BBQ Champ Jack Waiboer answers a viewer email about everything from pork shoulder to pork butt. Bill provides you with the website of the week that will teach you how to unwrap your passion for bacon and maybe make an awesome trashcan smoker and the secret ingredient of the week is one of those ancient Chinese secrets.

Grate TV is released weekly at http://GrateTV.com and here at the GrateTV iTunes page.

You can also get notified via email of all new episodes here.