This was probably one of my favorite recipes to do when I started getting into Smoking meat. Now if you dont have a smoking apparatus or grill you can still cook this dish in your oven at home. The key to this recipe is how you handle the onion. You want the finest mince you can get and I achieve that by using a cheese grater. Big chunks of onion change the texture of your loaf and cause it to become crumbly.
Ingredients:
1lb of lean ground beef (we used 90/10)
Half a sweet onion (Vidalia was used in this one)
2-3 cloves of garlic
3/4 cup of Panko Bread Crumbs
1 Quality Egg
2 4x4 cheddar slices
1/4 cup of shredded cheddar
5 slices of Bacon
1tbsp of Dom' Magic Dust
4tbsp favorite BBQ sauce
Directions: grate half a sweet onion using a cheese grater if you dont have a grater you can dice finely but the cheese grater makes the best consistency. Mince your garlic fine as well and add to onion mixture. Next add your beef, Dom's Dust and one egg. Mix with your hands till onion and garlic are evenly distributed through the meat. Now start adding your panko slowly and mix until meat isn't sticky. Usually about 3/4cup but sometimes as much as a full cup. If consistency is right the loaf will be slightly tacky and not dry. Now comes the fun part. Reserve some of the mixture about two golf balls sized pieces for the top. Now form your loaf and take your hand in a karate chop form and push it lengthwise into the loaf to make it look like a split hotdog bun. Be sure to close off your ends and you should have a nice rectangular cavity in the center of your loaf. For the cheese I like my slices to be a different color then my shred and I layer inside the cavity starting with half slices and then shred and then top with half slices. Next take your reserve meat mixture and close off your top of the loaf. Next you'll want to wrap your loaf in Bacon but before wrapping I like to render some of the fat out of the bacon and to do this you simply cook the bacon a bit. Keep the bacon floppy but you should have a good amount of grease left over that you can use to make green beans or your eggs the next morning. By rendering some of the fat you'll have a much better bacon product in the end. You wont have any fatty pieces that didnt cook right either. Now after bacon is rendered you can start laying the bacon over the loaf. Tuck the hangover under the loaf. Once all the bacon is laid I like to cover the loaf in plastic wrap and place in the fridge for at least 30mins as this will help hold its shape. Now get your smoker going while you wait for the loaf to chill. Get your temps up to 250-275° and cook your loaf for 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours until the internal temperature reaches 165°. Take loaf out of smoker and allow to sit for 10-15mins before slicing.
