Grilled Turkey Balls with HoneySuckle Ground Turkey and Turkey Bacon

Barbecue Master Goes High Tech with HoneySuckle White Turkey

Food Buzz (a web site for food bloggers) let members know that HoneySuckle White Turkey company would provide a Flip video camera and turkey products so bloggers who wanted to make the video leap could give it a try. That sounded like a lot of fun, so I sent in my application, and I was selected for the turkey grilling team.

This is my first grilling video, and I definately could have used a production team on a 100 degree day in North Carolina and with a phone call from my Mom on vacation right when the turkey balls needed to go on the grill. In any case, you will get the idea (and hopefully overlook my one handed grilling near the end and that turkey ball that plopped on me).

HoneySuckle White Turkey Balls Do Rock

One thing I can say for sure is that Turkey Balls are a fabulous appetizer grilled low and slow on charcoal, gas or electric grills. Bacon Wrapped Turkey Balls can also be done in a barbecue smoker. So, this is a recipe that anyone can grill or smoke at home, and it's easy to do too. Just put them on and check back a couple of times.

Turkey Bacon Wrapped Turkey Balls Recipe

Ingredients:

1 pound HoneySuckle White ground turkey (85/15)
6 slices HoneySuckle White Smoked turkey bacon (cut in half slices)
¾ cup marinade like oil based Italian dressing
1 cup barbecue sauce (cranberry flavored bbq sauces are especially good)

Directions:

1. Set up a grill to offset cook. With charcoal, you want coals on one side only. For gas, heat only one side of the grill. With electric, a low temperature works fine.
2. Soak toothpicks for 20 minutes before putting together turkey balls.
3. Roll ground turkey into 12 golf ball sized balls.
4. Wrap a half slice of turkey bacon around each turkey meatball and secure through the center with a toothpick.
5. Pour marinade over turkey balls.
6. Spray a grill wok with non-stick cooking spray.
7. Place bacon wrapped turkey balls in the wok and place on the cooler side of the offset grill.
8. Adjust heat to low or around 350 degrees F.
9. Grill with the lid closed for around 45 minutes or until turkey balls are 165 degrees F in the center.
10. Dip each turkey ball in barbecue sauce and place back in wok. Close grill lid and heat until barbecue sauce sets.
11. Place on platter or in bowl and serve.

Here is what the HoneySuckle White Turkey Balls look like when they are done. And, yes, they do taste as great as they look!

Thanks to Food Buzz and HoneySuckle White for the chance to work on this project.

Grilled Turkey with Bacon Weave - Pretty Tricky Smoker Project

I decided I wanted to bacon weave a turkey to smoke. I'm pretty good at bacon weaving but usually do things like meatloaf or pork loin and just make a bacon weave and roll the meat into the weave. With the shape of a whole turkey, I thought I'd have to try something a little different. And, now I can tell you how not to bacon weave a turkey for the grill or smoker.



First, I thought I would weave the bacon on the bottom of the turkey which I seasoned with Pig Pen Seasoning which is made in my home town and which I carry in my OpneSky Barbecue Shop, since it is my favorite all purpose seasoning for grilling. Then I planned to flip it. Let me tell you bacon does not stick to turkeys, and whew boy that was a mess. You can see it going wrong here. I did not even have the heart to photograph the pile of limp bacon and sad looking turkey after the weave fell off.



Hum, I thought: Maybe I can make a weave and roll that sucker like I usually do with bacon weaves for the grill. BOMP! Wrong answer. That was another mess and a huge pile of floppy bacon.



OK. Third time is the charm. I did the bacon weave right on top of the turkey. I laid strips of bacon all along the turkey top and then went back and did strips in and out. That worked out OK, but I still had to handle the bird gently to get it on the Traeger smoker.



I was glad I did not do a tight weave on the bacon. As the turkey began to smoke, the bacon did draw up (of course), but the weave was loose enough that it was not a big problem.

The biggest issue was that bacon grills much faster than turkey (or a whole one), so I was closely babysitting this smoked turkey and spritzing it down with apple juice and putting aluminum foil over the top to keep the bacon from getting totally black.



My grilled smoked turkey did turn out nice as you can see, but it was a lot of work and a lot of checking to make sure I did not burn the heck out of the bacon weave.

As far as taste, this smoked turkey was fabulous. The grilled turkey picked up both the bacon and the smoke flavor and was super moist.

I would suggest doing just a turkey breast with bacon weave on the grill, so the timing is not so difficult. Also, it would be easier to just put a line of bacon across the turkey and then remove the bacon if it started getting too dark before the turkey reaches temperature.

In any case, we had a very yummy smoked turkey, and it looked pretty too. But, it took some real work to nail it. I doubt I'd do a full turkey with a bacon weave again, but it was fun to try out.