Jon’s bacon bomb meat explosion football

Jon’s Bacon Bomb Meat Explosion Football

• 2 lbs good-quality thick cut bacon
• 1 lb ground chicken sausage, casings removed
• 1 lb ground pork sausage, casings removed
• 1 lb ground beef sausage, casings removed
• 1 large onion, diced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 jalapeño, seeds removed, diced
• 1 lb porcini or other meaty mushroom, sliced thinly
• ½ cup favourite BBQ seasoning, plus some for seasoning outside ‘football’
• 1 cup favourite BBQ sauce, plus some to glaze outside of football
• 1 baguette
• 1 loaf of favorite kind of bread
• Cheese Sauce
• 3 tbsp butter
• 3 tbsp flour
• 2 cups homo milk
• 1 cup cheddar cheese grated
• 1 cup Havarti cheese, grated
• 1 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
• 4 oz (1/2 brick) cream cheese, cut into cubes
• Salt and pepper, to taste
• Hot sauce, to taste 

 

To make football bomb:

Cut 1 lb of bacon into pieces. In a frying pan, cook bacon until crispy. Remove bacon from pan and set aside, keeping the bacon grease in the pan. Add onions, garlic, jalapeño and mushrooms to pan and cook until just softened. Season to taste. Set mix aside to cool.

In the same pan over medium-high heat, cook each type of sausage separately, one after the other. Set aside each as it is cooked. 

To make bacon weave:

On a flexible cutting board or parchment paper, weave remaining full-length strips of bacon into a ‘blanket’ of bacon. Weave strips over and under the other strips, like the lattice on a pie.

To layer:

Distribute pork sausage onto the bacon blanket covering the bacon evenly in a thin layer of sausage. Leave the top corners of the blanket without sausage in order to roll the bomb into a football shape. (If you just want to roll it up in an even log, cover the whole bacon blanket evenly.)

Drizzle layer of sausage with 1/3 of the bbq sauce and half of the mushroom and onion mixture. Lay the chicken sausage on top, then press everything firmly down so the layers stick to one another. Drizzle layer with 1/3 of the bbq sauce, and sprinkle with the cooked bacon pieces. Press in final beef sausage layer and the second half of the onion mushroom mixture. All of the layers on the bacon blanket should be about 2” thick. Now you can start to roll it.

Roll up the sausage without the bacon blanket. Use the flexible cutting board or the parchment paper to get started and roll the layers into a football-shaped log. Then roll back the log into the bacon blanket so it is covered all the way around in bacon. Tuck in the blanket and shape it like a football.

Sprinkle the football with a light layer of BBQ seasoning and place on a rack in a deep pan 

To cook in BBQ:

If you have access to a BBQ , place bomb on rack in pan over indirect low heat and cook for 2 hours, until the bacon blanket is crispy and the internal temperature of the core meat reads at least 170 F. 

To cook in oven: 

If cooking in the oven, preheat oven to 300 F and cook on a wire rack over a deep pan. Cook until internal temperature of the inside meat reaches at least 170 F. Brush the remaining BBQ sauce over the bomb and continue cooking for 10 minutes to set the glaze.

(There will be a lot of fat dripping from the meat -- not throw this out. It can be used as a substitute for the butter in the cheese sauce and used to toast the bread. Alternately, it will store in the fridge for a few weeks or the freezer even longer.) 

Cut up loaves of bread into medium-sized slices.

Let the bomb rest on a cutting board for at least 20 minutes before cutting into it. Take a slice of Havarti cheese and cut into football ‘laces,’ laying in an X shape on the top of the bomb so it looks like a football. 

While the bomb is resting, make cheese sauce.

Cheese Sauce:

In saucepan over medium-high heat, melt butter. Add flour to melted butter and whisk for 3 mins. Whisk in milk, one cup at a time, and continue whisking until mixture comes to a boil. Keep whisking until mixture becomes thick. Be careful not to burn. Turn heat down to medium. Add cream cheese to pan and stir until melted. Add grated cheese to pan and stir until melted and smooth. Season mixture with salt and pepper and hot sauce to taste. 

Meanwhile, brush fat from the roasting pan on the bread and toast in the oven. Arrange toast around the bomb on a platter and pour the cheese sauce over the whole thing.

Garnish with chives…and prepare for the roar of the crowd as you enter the TV room with the secret weapon to your Super Bowl party!