Onion bomb with cheese centre in a pepperoni boat
The onion bomb was one of last year's trends that spilled over from the barbecue scene in the USA. Here you can read why this tasty bomb belongs on your barbecue.
On the face of it, it's actually just an onion stuffed with minced meat. However, if we take a closer look and add that certain something, we get a great tasty treat from the grill. That's why we add a cheese centre to our onion bomb and place it in a pepperoni roll :-)
A prerequisite for the onion bomb is a closed grill that allows you to grill with indirect heat. If you missed my theory section on the kettle grill - you're welcome: [[marketingpage:1221]]
Back to the onion bomb. To prepare our onion bomb, we need (for two bombs):
- Two vegetable onions (the namesake)
- Two fresh chillies
- About half a kilo of minced pork
- Some bacon
- Spice mix of your choice
- Two slices of cheese (e.g. Gouda) for the cheese centre
- A barbecue thermometer
Prepare the bombs
Depending on how big you want the onion bombs to be, choose lots of small onions or large vegetable onions. I chose vegetable onions for my big bombs. For the cheese centre, first take a slice of lukewarm Gouda cheese, knead it together firmly and roll it into a small ball. Place the minced pork in a container and season well with at least salt and pepper. Depending on your taste, you can add other spices; I like paprika, ginger and garlic with pork, for example. You can also use a ready mix (rub) for pork. In any case, I season the meat too much rather than too little, otherwise it will taste a little bland afterwards.
Divide the mince into as many portions as you want to grill onion bombs and form balls. Press the balls flat with your hand and use your thumb to form a small hollow in which to place the cheese balls. Then fold the mince upwards at the sides so that you end up with a mince ball that completely encloses the cheese.
Into the onion dress
Now comes the namesake of the onion bomb: the onion. We only need the outermost one or two layers of the onion for "packing". Cut the peeled onion in half and carefully remove the outermost layers of skin. Now stick these to the outside of the mince balls so that the skin encloses them.
If we were just making a regular onion bomb, we would be done at this point. However, since we are adding a chilli pepper boat on top, we take one chilli pepper each and head them. Scoop out the peppers with a knife and remove all the seeds. The mince ball is now simply placed in the chilli pepper boat.
Last but not least, stabilise the whole thing by wrapping some fresh bacon around the pepperoni (everything tastes better with bacon).
Light the bomb in the grill
Prepare the grill for low temperature cooking (approx. 120° - 150°). A barbecue thermometer is essential at this point. Insert the probe into the centre of the mince and place the onion bombs in the indirect area of the grill
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Now you just have to wait until the thermometer reads a magical 75 degrees Celsius, so the pork is still slightly pink. My larger onion bombs stayed on the grill for around three quarters of an hour until they were ready.
Now just slice and enjoy. Have fun trying them out and grilling them again!
More from the barbecue?
I was born in the Rhineland, am a project manager in IT and a family man. Away from ones and zeros and at the latest with the move into our home I have found my only true project: The barbecue!
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Since 2015 I have been writing about this on my blog. There I give my readers all sorts of tricks and tricks about barbecuing with charcoal and present my latest creations and ideas.
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You'll find more of me here:
<a href="http://project-bbq.de" target="_blank">project-bbq.de</a>