·
Dragon Claws BBQ Appetizer
Anaheim peppers stuffed with a
combination of hot (or sweet) Italian sausage and ground turkey, onions, and
peppers, wrapped in bacon, smoked, then glazed with a honey butter barbecue
sauce.
Sticky sweet, spicy goodness…with
just a breath of fire! Oh, soooo good…
Ingredients:
6 whole Anaheim chiles, fairly straight
6 slices (thin sliced) bacon
1/2 lb ground turkey
1/2 lb Johnsonville Beer Brats
1/2 sweet onion, diced
2 tsp Buffalo sauce
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp hickory salt
3 tsp of your favorite BBQ rub
Glaze
1 cup Sweet Baby Ray’s Honey BBQ Sauce
1/2 cup honey
6 Tbsp butter, melted
Ingredients:
Wash the chiles and slice off the stem ends to
roughly equal equal length. Remove sausage from brat
casings.
Cut a long V-shaped opening on one
side of each chile. Start at the cut end, about
1/2″ wide and end about an inch from the tip.
Remove the seeds and veins from each
chile, and rinse again. Mix all of the remaining
ingredients, except the bacon, and bbq rub.
Let meat mixture rest in the fridge
4-6 hours, then on counter for at least an hour.
Stuff each chile
with sausage, using a teaspoon, and packing it loosely from the end up.
Wrap each chile
with two slices of bacon, one at a time. Starting about 1″ from the cut
end, tuck the end of the slice between the inside of the pepper and the
stuffing.
Stretch it around the pepper moving
toward the top. Tuck the loose end into the chile.
Repeat with the second strip of bacon, from the opposite end.
Fire up your grill and prepare for
indirect cooking over medium-high heat. (About 25 briquettes in a Weber Smokey
Joe.)
Add a few chips of fruit wood to the
fire about 10 minutes before adding the chiles. If
you’re using a gas grill, use a smoke box.
Dust each claw lightly with dry rub.
Bacon wrapped sausage stuffed
peppers on the grill
Cook the Dragon Claws indirectly,
but close to the heat about 45 minutes, turning once about halfway through.
Mix the glaze ingredients over heat
to melt the butter, glaze each chile on both sides,
and cook another 5 minutes. Repeat, then cook another 5 minutes.
Remove and serve immediately.
On the Traeger: 20 minutes on
“Smoke”, then grill 15 minutes at 300F (lid down), brush with glaze and flip,
brush with glaze and grill 10 more minutes (lid down).
I also like to make a “baby” version
of these using the bagged baby-bells. Perfect on a toothpick as a one or
two-bite appetizer, or 3 on a skewer as a “heavy app.”
Enjoy!
– Chef Perry
Thanks to Chef Perry P. Perkins and http://hautemealz.com for th recipe! Please bookmark
his page for other great recipes!