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Six more weeks of winter: get revenge with Ground Hog
The Web site for the award-winning alternative weekly, the Philadelphia City Paper.
Six more weeks of winter: get revenge with Ground Hog
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| Photo l Drew Lazor |
Groundhog and woodchuck recipes abound on the Internet. Most require you to clean your freshly shot carcass with a garden hose, remove the scent glands from the 'chucks armpits, and hang the critter for 3 days to reduce that gamey flavor. Since we live in the city without a hose, much less a shotgun, and don't care to find scent glands at all, we'll just stick with what we know: word play!
Nothing says Ground Hog Day like a visit to Fiorella's, the premier sausage emporium at 9th and Christian. This family-run business keeps it simple: they sell hot and sweet pork sausage, with or without fennel seeds, pork roasts, cheese sausage and bacon. Everything is made fresh on premises, and the prices are fair for such quality product. We hit up the pig mart to score some hot and sweet loose sausage and bacon, in order to attempt the travesty of nature that has swept the Web: BBQ Addicts' Bacon Explosion.
The basic premise is to weave a mat of bacon, five strips by five strips, and cover with a layer of loose sausage. Cooked crumbled bacon, sprinklings of dry rub and barbecue sauce are added, then the whole thing is rolled into a meat pinwheel. The creation is then smoked, or baked low and slow for at least two-and-a-half hours to yield a log of truly-heart stopping proportions.
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| Bacon-weaving, for fun and possible death. |
| Don Ipock for The New York Times |
The New York Times picked up the Bacon Explosion as an example of both the power of bacon-love and internet marketing, lending it hitherto-unheard of mainstream credibility and professional photography. Meal Ticket tried their hand at bacon-weaving and rolling by request of Felicia's Dad, who despite high triglycerides was determined to experience the thing.
Dabbed with a little Sweet Baby Ray's honey barbecue sauce, one sweet and one hot Fiorella's meat fattie went into the oven. Three hours later, we dissected the thing and slapped the slices between split Pillsbury biscuits. The verdict? Frightening as it looks, it's good. The salty strips of exterior bacon baste the sausage and keep it moist, while the crumbled bacon creates texture variation. The sweet barbecue sauce added another layer of flavor that contrasted spectacularly with the spicy sausage.
The massive roll of Ground Hog made for a gruntingly good Superbowl Sunday dinner, as well as supplying the fun of weaving pork fat into a mat. With an alleged 5,000 calories and 500 grams of fat, I don't think we'll be eating it regularly. But it made the men happy. Carnivores, Eat This Immediately.
Check out the NY Times version of the recipe HERE.
Fiorella's Sausage, 817 Christian St., 215-922-0506
Drew Lazor just shoved 12 of these into his Carotid Artery.
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