I did a barbecue last weekend for some family and visiting relatives from Texas, so there was little point trying to impress them with some brisket or ribs, although I did do some pulled pork to satisfy the masses. What I decided to do was take some inspiration from the UK barbecue community and produce something the Americans, and indeed the British relatives, wouldn't have had before.
Recent trends for less Americanised barbecue have seen the popularity of the barbecue scotch egg (previously done on this site, but also on Country Wood Smoke), the moink (beef wrapped in bacon for the 'moo' and the 'oink', in this case by Grillstock) and the dirty meatenburg (again, Marcus at Country Wood Smoke). So, I present to you, the Dirty Scotch Egg Meaten-Moinkburg, a combination of all three.
"The chef was so preoccupied with whether or not he could, he didn't stop to think if he should."
The recipe starts with the creation of a bacon lattice weave, as seen below.
Next, add a row of pork sausage meat and a row of beef sausage meat. It is the beef sausage meat that gives the Dirty Scotch Egg Meaten-Moinkburg its Moink provenance, well the 'Moo' part of it anyway. The original Meatenburg used black pudding and pork sausage meat to create the battenburg effect, when I next do this dish I will probably mix one of the sausage meats with something like paprika or some finely ground black pepper to create more contrast between the two meats.
Now take some pickled eggs and line them up along the divide between the two sausage meats. Yes, you could obviously use normal hard boiled eggs, I'd probably not go for a soft-boiled oozy egg like you might with a scotch egg, you'll see why when you come to slice it later!! I prefer the use of pickled eggs in a scotch egg, especially as I pickle mine in malt vinegar for colour and the malty flavour it gives off, it's also more consistent with the original Manchester Egg (The white bits on the eggs are where I packed them into the jar too tightly and the vinegar didn't colour them that lovely malty-brown colour! Less eggs next time Jason!)
Then add the next layer of the two sausage meats, but on the reverse side to the first layer for that battenburg, sorry..meatenburg, effect.
Then all one needs to do is, starting at the bottom of the picture, use the bacon weave to roll the sausage meat and pickled egg 'loaf' up and tuck the ends in. I then wrapped this in cling film and left it overnight, partly because I thought the cold might make the meat mixture a but stiffer, but mostly because I wanted to get as much prep done as early as I could! About 2 hrs before the cook I rolled it in rub (in this case a homemade rub) and then rolled it in panko breadcrumbs, which in my mind helped give it more credibility to its provenance as part-Scotch Egg.
The Dirty Scotch Egg Meaten-Moinkburg then went onto the Weber for almost 2hrs at around 250F, cooking indirect with some cherry wood chunks thrown on for good smokey flavouring, but mainly I was cooking until the internal temperature was 165F (of the meaty bit of sausage, not the central part with the egg in). As you will see from the photo, the Dirty Scotch Egg Meaten-Moinkburg ended up being joined by a Kellybab, which is cooked at a much higher temperature. To compensate I put the Kellybab closer to the heat source, although I was cooking indirect throughout.
About 90 mins through the cook I basted the Dirty Scotch Egg Meaten-Moinkburg in some home made barbecue sauce to give it a bit more moisture, flavour on the crust and a nice glaze. Then, just before the Dirty Scotch Egg Meaten-Moinkburg reached 165F internal 'sausage temp', I gave it some direct heat just to crisp up the bacon weave and breadcrumbs that little bit more. I then wrapped it and let it rest for at least an hour, which I needed because the rest of the barbecue dishes needed tending too. The final Dirty Scotch Egg Meaten-Moinkburg looked like this. A neatly formed parcel of meaty, eggy, barbecuey goodness.
When I unwrapped it for serving, I cut it into slices and served it as seen below. You can see the juices from the sausage pooling in the bottom of the tray and this is immediately after slicing. I also, unintentionally, managed to get a quite nice (pink) smoke ring round the outside.
As you can see, the battenburg effect is not as pronounced as the black pudding based meatenburg, but some of the guests didn't like black pudding, so I went for the beef sausage meat instead. Some of the later slices I served I had grilled on the barbecue as I was finishing grilling some steak and some sausages. This extra grilling, especially on a nice thick slice of Dirty Scotch Egg Meaten-Moinkburg, really worked well and added a nice char-grilled flavour and colour to it (although due to the frantic nature of service at this point I failed to get a photo!! Sorry!!).
