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| The Pig Shot appetizer. |
Apologies to Billy Joel but I kept singing this as I was making them.
Because you had to be a pig shot, din' ya? You had to open up your mouth.
You had to be a pig shot, din' ya, all your friends were so knocked out
And these flavor bombs will knock your friends out. Pig shots have been around for a little while and show up from time to time in online BBQ forums. They seem a little involved but they are actually pretty easy.
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| Slices of hot Italian sausage wrapped with thick bacon form the "shot glass". These are then stuffed with BBQ rub, cream cheese, and brown sugar then smoked. |
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| All rolled up, filled, and ready to go onto the smoker. |
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| I cooked these indirect on my Large Big Green Egg at 275°F for right at 90 minutes. It was set up indirect using a cast iron plate setter. The fuel was Parker lump mixed with about a cup of cherry wood chips. |
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| I crowned each with a dollop of homemade BBQ sauce. |
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| These didn't last long at all and I'm going to have to triple the recipe for the card game, I think. |
These are delicious as written but the beauty of the Pig Shot is that you can fill the "shot glass" with just about anything - it's a "flexible flavor delivery platform". This version that I made is from Bill Gillespie's new book.
The Smoking Bacon and Hog Cookbook
Bill
Gillespie with Tim O’Keefe
Page Street
Publishing
As the title proclaims, The Smoking Bacon and Hog Cookbook is all
about smoking “the whole pig and nothing but the pig”. It is Bill Gillespie’s follow up to his first
book, Secrets to Smoking. Bill is a long
time fixture on the BBQ circuit and has won on BBQ’s biggest stages, including World Championships at The American Royal Invitational and Jack Daniels
Invitational. In this new book, Bill
shares his BBQ wisdom and a horde of creative pork recipes.
Physical Description
The book is a
medium sized paperback at 8 x 9”, which makes it useful when you need to book
open on a counter top. Speaking of that,
this book has premium binding so it opens up flat and pages won’t flip
themselves while you’re trying to cook – that’s a small detail with big
benefits making it easier to use. It seems
like a small book in your hands but it’s full of a lot of solid information.
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| The premium binding keeps the book from trying to close itself or flip pages. I wish that ALL cookbooks had this feature because pages always seem to flip themselves just when your hands are covered in gunk, right? |
Recipes
The recipes are mostly pretty involved but are easy enough for a
beginner to follow. The books says it’s
geared towards cookers like Weber Smokey Mountain, Humphrey’s (GREAT insulated
cooker!), and barrel smokers but I had no problem cooking the recipes on my
Green Egg and Grill Dome kamado grills.
The book is organized into 7 sections.
1.
The pig,
the whole pig, and nothing but the pig – A brief but efficient introduction
with information on types of hogs, smokers, wood, charcoal, and time versus
temperature.
2.
Belly of
the beast - Most books might have 1, maybe 2 bacon recipes. This chapter boasts 7 bacon recipes, many
more other cured meats like pancetta or Canadian bacon, and plenty of ideas for
using them, such as; balsamic onion jam, bacon wrapped onion rings, or maple
bacon butter.
3.
Sausage,
sausage, and more sausage – They say never watch sausage or politics being
made but homemade sausage is crazy good so Bill spills the goods on making your
own sausages like Italian, andouille, breakfast sausage and more. He also gives some fun recipes for using the
sausage like the Philly cheese stuffed fatty.
4.
Ribs,
chops, and loins – Bill shares his competition ribs recipe which would be
worth the price of the book alone. In
addition, he created recipes for Apple Smoked Baby Back Ribs, Chinese
Five-Spice Marinated ribs and Country style ribs with Jerk Seasoning. The Honey Glazed Smoked Pork Chops and Bacon
Wrapped Tenderloin also sound delicious.
5.
Butts,
shoulders, and hams – Bill reveals his recipe and techniques for his award
winning pork butt as well as pork picnic and hams. In a smart move, he gives recipes that use
leftovers from the three big meats to create new and exciting dishes like pork
burnt ends, pork eggrolls, tacos 2 ways, and a three meat Cubano sandwich.
6.
Going whole
hog – Bill gives you everything you need to go whole hog. In this chapter, he gives tips on buying a hog and shares his
recipe. He breaks down how to trim, inject
and coat your hog. He then gives cooking
temps and times depending on a few factors.
He provides 18 color step by step pictures to help develop the concept
he uses.
7.
Sauces
and rubs – He covers all of the bases with the classic sauces, such as; KC
style, Bourbon, Honey, Eastern Carolina (my fav), Alabama white sauce, and
Carolina gold, another of my favorites.
In addition
to the Pig Shots, we also made some other things from this book, such as the
bacon wrapped onion rings and bacon wrapped chicken wings.
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| I didn't have any sugar maple wood but I did have these Maple mini-cubes from Mojobricks so I used them. |
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| The Grill Dome fired up and the wings just going on. I cooked them a little hotter (290f) than the book called for. |
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| Bacon wrapped wings getting their tan on. |
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| Time to sauce the wings! |
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| Bacon wrapped onion rings on the Grill Dome. |
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| Onion rings done and served with the Sriracha mayo. |
Just a heads up. I'm pretty sure Bill is using his home cured bacon for these recipes. The bacon I make at home has slices that are considerably longer than what you might buy at the store. So when he says a recipe takes one piece of bacon per item, it will be more like 1 1/2 pieces of store bought bacon.
Photos
The Smoking Bacon and Hog Cookbook is packed with eye catching photography,
which I think is important to a cookbook for inspiration, direction, and visual
cues. The book has mostly finished and
plated pictures but it also includes a few “how to’s”. The publisher did a good job of blending
pictures in throughout, some in text, some full page photos, and step by steps. The photographer is Ken Goodman who just
happened to shoot another book that I am currently reviewing. Ken is well regarded as not only an
exceptional photographer but he has 20 years experience as a chef.
Summary
The Smoking Bacon and Hog Cookbook surprised me. I thought it was going to be a lame attempt
to jump on the bacon trend but Bill Gillespie did a fantastic job with putting
together a solid book that ignores the “johnny come lately’s” and relies on
Bill’s 20+ years of experience with the art of smoking pork.
I think that anyone with an interest in grilling will benefit from
this book but I think the person that will get the most out of it is the
serious BBQ enthusiast – the Eggheads, Weber fans, and people that like to make
their own rubs and sauces.
Rank
5 stars – an
absolute resource, will refer to frequently
4 stars – good
cookbook with value added tips, photos, guides, and other content
3 stars – Good,
average cookbook, glad to have it on my shelf
2 stars – a recipe
collection
1 star – would give it
away to someone else to get rid of it, but only if I didn't like them very much
[FTC Standard Disclaimer] I received a copy of The Smoking Bacon and Hog Cookbook at no costs. I received Mojobricks free of charge because the owner is on our Memphis in May team and we are using them in our cookers at the World Championship cook-off.
