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Prefrozen bean balls. Well mini muffins anyway.
Made the beans:
cooked 6oz pancetta, reserved some of the fat and cooked a couple small chopped onions in that. Added some crumbled up dried wild horse mushrooms.
I used dried mushrooms rather than fresh as they'll thicken the bean sauce up, while fresh mushrooms would thin it down.
Added a tin of baked beans (over 90% of all baked beans sold in the uk are in a sweet tomato sauce - it's how we like them :-)
Added some MH and garlic powder and some cbp. Next time I'll add some cubes of cheese as well :-)
These were spooned in a mini-muffin baking mould I have. It came from the pound shop (yes really
) and the silicon is very very thin. But as long as you stand it on something rigid - it works perfectly.
Once filled - and I judged it almost perfectly as I had only a teaspoon of mix left after filling all 12 moulds - it was put in the freezer overnight.
Because this was a pretty thick mix,I could mound it up a bit too.
Also made up about 3.5 lb of bacon banger sausage meat to use for the balls.
Only neede 2lb 4oz - so got a pound or so sausage meat to play with later.
I'm thinking maybe keep it till I next make abts and use bits of sausagemeat instead of mango
Next day. Weighed 3oz sausage meat, pressed flat, placed frozen bean ball in centre, worked the meat round and rolled in breadcrumbs :-)
12 beanballs :-) 11 went back into the freezer to keep the centres frozen.
And the other one went straight into the smoker as a test :-)
Worked perfectly. The trick is either cook entirely from frozen or soon enough after wrapping that the centre is still frozen. This way the sausage meat cooks and firms up before the liquid centre defrosts. And handle fairly carefully once cooked and hot. I had no problems or blowouts, but it wouldn't take much squeezing to get messy
Rest of the bbq was some marinated ribs, few big shrimp on sticks as an appetiser. Some butter steamed corn, garlic bread and potato salad with boiled eggs and cheese and marmite sasuage bits.
I only have pics of the ribs, balls and corn
It's always nice when things work exactly as you want them to - and this is definitely one of those.
You don't have to limit yourself to beans either. This would work for any liquid or semiliquid filling.
How about chilli, gumbo, grits (can't stand the stuff myself, but it'd still work) stew, soup etc. You could pretty much stick anything you liked inside a sausage ball :-)
And I'll suggest it before someone goes a head and makes them. Cooked chilli balls, wrapped in dough and then back in the oven/smoker till the breads cooked. A totally portable sloppy joe :-)
The beanballs are easily as good cold as they are hot - so great picnic/lunchbox food.
Also great to give to guests at a bbq. And just watch their faces when they cut into it and see the liquid centre :-)
One thing - try and keep the sausage meat fairly thin in releation to the filling. It looks much more impressive and a lot less like a small fatty.
And I suppose someone will wrap some in bacon as well - Me I prefer the bacon on the inside.
Prefrozen bean balls. Well mini muffins anyway.
Made the beans:
cooked 6oz pancetta, reserved some of the fat and cooked a couple small chopped onions in that. Added some crumbled up dried wild horse mushrooms.
I used dried mushrooms rather than fresh as they'll thicken the bean sauce up, while fresh mushrooms would thin it down.
Added a tin of baked beans (over 90% of all baked beans sold in the uk are in a sweet tomato sauce - it's how we like them :-)
Added some MH and garlic powder and some cbp. Next time I'll add some cubes of cheese as well :-)
These were spooned in a mini-muffin baking mould I have. It came from the pound shop (yes really
) and the silicon is very very thin. But as long as you stand it on something rigid - it works perfectly. Once filled - and I judged it almost perfectly as I had only a teaspoon of mix left after filling all 12 moulds - it was put in the freezer overnight.
Because this was a pretty thick mix,I could mound it up a bit too.
Also made up about 3.5 lb of bacon banger sausage meat to use for the balls.
Only neede 2lb 4oz - so got a pound or so sausage meat to play with later.
I'm thinking maybe keep it till I next make abts and use bits of sausagemeat instead of mango
Next day. Weighed 3oz sausage meat, pressed flat, placed frozen bean ball in centre, worked the meat round and rolled in breadcrumbs :-)
12 beanballs :-) 11 went back into the freezer to keep the centres frozen.
And the other one went straight into the smoker as a test :-)
Worked perfectly. The trick is either cook entirely from frozen or soon enough after wrapping that the centre is still frozen. This way the sausage meat cooks and firms up before the liquid centre defrosts. And handle fairly carefully once cooked and hot. I had no problems or blowouts, but it wouldn't take much squeezing to get messy
Rest of the bbq was some marinated ribs, few big shrimp on sticks as an appetiser. Some butter steamed corn, garlic bread and potato salad with boiled eggs and cheese and marmite sasuage bits.
I only have pics of the ribs, balls and corn
It's always nice when things work exactly as you want them to - and this is definitely one of those.
You don't have to limit yourself to beans either. This would work for any liquid or semiliquid filling.
How about chilli, gumbo, grits (can't stand the stuff myself, but it'd still work) stew, soup etc. You could pretty much stick anything you liked inside a sausage ball :-)
And I'll suggest it before someone goes a head and makes them. Cooked chilli balls, wrapped in dough and then back in the oven/smoker till the breads cooked. A totally portable sloppy joe :-)
The beanballs are easily as good cold as they are hot - so great picnic/lunchbox food.
Also great to give to guests at a bbq. And just watch their faces when they cut into it and see the liquid centre :-)
One thing - try and keep the sausage meat fairly thin in releation to the filling. It looks much more impressive and a lot less like a small fatty.
And I suppose someone will wrap some in bacon as well - Me I prefer the bacon on the inside.
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