Breakfast Fatty

A Fatty is a very easy and basic thing to BBQ. It is also surprisingly tasty.

At its most basic, it is a simple loaf or roll of sausagemeat, smoked at a medium temperature until done – the inside should be moist, and the outside crisp.

Then there are the many variations – instead of sausagemeat, some people use beef hamburger mince; the fatty can be coated in egg and breadcrumbs, or wrapped in bacon; or it can be stuffed.

This breakfast fatty is novice level. It is a tube of black pudding, around which is wrapped sausage meat, around which is wrapped streaky bacon. The bacon is woven into a mat, before wrapping it around the fatty – this both bastes it and holds it together.

I put it on a medium (250 degrees Fahrenheit) heat – a lower heat would have given it more time to smoke, but I wanted it to cook in a couple of hours. When the internal temp hit 165-175 degrees, it is done.

During the cooking, the sausage layer split along the top (the black you can see is not burnt sausage but black pudding). However the bacon held it together well, so it wasn’t ruined. I think next time I should use a thicker layer of sausage, and a thinner black pudding. However, it doesn’t change how it tastes, which is excellent. I find that using black pudding as the core, the fatty appears and tastes less greasy – presumably the black pudding is absorbing some of the fat, so it is no healthier, but it is extremely tasty.

The rest I am leaving to cool, then it will be sliced, some for the fridge, and some for the freezer. It is nice cold, but is best used in a fry up – simply defrost and fry a slice with an egg or two and tomatoes and beans. You have your sausage, bacon and blackpudding, all in one; and because it is already sliced, you are automatically controlling your portions.

Addition – September 9, 2013

Here is another, slightly neater, attempt. This time I rolled the sausagemeat thinner, which meant it wrapped around the blackpudding twice, so there was no join to split.