Pork Bellies & Titanic Tater Tots

Just f’n around & wanted to do something fun for the kids. Each begins with a few large potatoes. Nuke long enough to soften. Cut in half & scoop out most of the potato, leaving a nice even skin. Run the innards through a ricer to attain that tater-tot potato-bit-sized appearance, then fry in olive oil to get that tot color & crunch. Cut up some really good hotdogs (I used Hebrew National here) & sautee them with chopped onions. Mix the fried potato bits, dogs, onions & shredded cheddar cheese, then pack this substance into each half of the potato & slap’m back together.

For the Pork Bellies, wrap the tater in bacon to hold the entire structure together & pop on the egg indirect just long enough to crisp the bacon (as everything else is already cooked).

For the Titanic Tater Tot, lose the bacon, dredge the tater in an egg wash, coat in un-fried tater-tot bits, spray the exterior with oil (I used olive oil Pam) so that you get that tater-tot fried thing going, tightly wrap in foil to keep all that stuff on, then pop on the egg for cook’n along side the pork bellies, after about 20 minutes the coating should be set so you can unwrap & let it get brown & crispy, it’ll kinda look a little like a giant tater tot, but stuffed with joy & happiness:





















At the 20 minute mark:



The finished TTT:





The finished Pork Belly:





Funny thing, often when I hatch these hair-brained plans I run them past the wife & it never fails, she looks at me like I’m nuts, laughs at me, but after eating, often requests a do-over, so I usually get the last laugh .

I also thought about calling them Doggie Taters, Tater Dogs, Cheesy Tater Dogs, or Pork Bellied Tater Dogs.

Have a great weekend everyone.