Thursday, March 28, 2013

Beer Basted Bratwursts in Pretzel Buns

There are a lot of inspirational basketball movies, such as Hoosiers, Coach Carter, and Semi-Pro.  Okay, Semi-Pro might not be inspirational, but it is funny.  But in almost every basketball movie, what does the coach have to convince the team to do?  Play back to basics, fundamental basketball.  Fundamentals.  

Fundamental is where I went with Round 2 of Brat-ketology during last weekends tournament games.  I mean, how much more fundamental can you get than the flavor pairings of brats, pretzels, beer, and mustard?


Beer Basted Brats with Pretzel Buns

by www.nibblemethis.com

Ingredients (serves 5)
  • 1 package Johnsonville Original Bratwursts
  • 5 Pretzel hot dog buns (link to recipe below)
  • 1/3 cup honey mustard sauce
  • 1 beer
  • 2 Tbsp hot sauce
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1/4 tsp black pepper
Instructions
  1. Preheat a charcoal grill to medium heat.
  2. Mix together beer, hot sauce, pepper and salt. Place in a stoneware or tin pie pan on the grill.
  3. Grill bratwursts 15-20 minutes, turning frequently. Each time you turn, dip them and roll them in the beer baste.
  4. Serve on the pretzel roll, drizzled with honey mustard.
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Pretzel rolls have been all the rage among food sites and blogs the past few years and it was something that I have been wanting to try.   I ended up picking this recipe from SheSimmers.com and pretty much followed it as written but baked them on Alexis' Big Green Egg.

The Thermapen making sure my water for yeast was between 120-130f.

Weighing dry ingredients is more accurate for baking.
 The roll recipe calls for having water in the oven when baking.  Normally I bake in the Egg with the plate setter "legs down".  In this case, I put it in legs up, a pie pan with water on it, topped that with a cooking grate and then a pizza stone.  

Cornmeal on the pizza stone keeps it from sticking.

Wow.  Aren't those ugly?  But they tasted good, kind of like pumpernickel.

Dipping the brats each turn keeps them moist and bastes on layers of flavor.

Simple.  But good.

The buns had great flavor but the downside was that there was too much bread to brat ratio.  Next time I would shape the buns smaller perhaps. I want the bread to be a supporting player, the brat is the point guard.

[Standard Disclaimer]  I am on Johnsonville's Big Taste Grillers Panel and received these bratwursts at no charge.