I didn’t feel like having one of the burgers for dinner, so I mushed the 3 into 2 for my husband (and hoped he wouldn’t notice eating too much meat), and just focused my attention on the bacon. Is it just me or do you think the bacon often gets lost on the burger?
I dragged out the cast iron griddle that doesn’t sit right on my stove, and it just fits in the kettle grill with no room to spare. I put the bacon on the cold griddle and then set it on the hot grill. Closing the lid for a few minutes let the griddle heat up and I could hear the sizzling beginning. After that, I kept the lid over, tending to the bacon as I would on the stovetop. As you can see in one image, that griddle had a hot spot in the middle where my charcoal was piled, so I just moved pieces around and took some off as needed. That’s when I had to figure out how to get the griddle off to grill the burgers and onions.
The griddle fit in so tightly, I had to tip it a little to set it on the grate and get my gloved fingers out, and with the grease reservoir filled with bacon grease, I didn’t want to cause a grease flare up on the coals that would jump up to my arms. It seemed like the only way to be able to lift the griddle would be to remove the grease first, so I got my turkey baster and started sucking up the grease and putting it in a cup. There was a ton of grease and it seemed to be going okay until I noticed that I was melting the plastic baster by touching the cast iron with the tip. Oh, well. It worked up until the tip melted itself shut and now it’s off to the gadget store for another baster. Do they make one in metal or glass? We’ll see.
I learned a few things about the griddle, about using plastic on a grill, and about cooking bacon on a grill, but in the end, it was all about the sandwich:
- grilled ciabatta roll
- guacamole
- lots of chewy bacon
- grilled onions
- roasted tomatoes
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