A little while ago, I did a post on slavinks, which are basically sausage mince wrapped around with streaky bacon. Unfortunately at the time, there were no photos, but that's no impasse to posting around these parts. Recently a jar of barbeque rub, Rod's Rub, Sweet Mesquite, came my way to try out. After messing around with it for a while and using it as it is supposed to be, with terrific results, I thought "Hey, maybe this stuff can be turned inside out" Which of course I did. So instead of just being a rub, it also has a place as an ingredient. It gave me the chance to do a couple of overdue photos as well.

What struck me about about Rod's Rub was the haunting, smokey notes of mesquite combined with just the right touch of honey sweetness. After the experimentation with grilling using this rub, there was something about the flavours that struck me - if it could taste so good rubbed on the outside, how would it work on the inside?

We all know that grilling alters the flavours of spices, but if the rub was used as a key ingredient, the pure flavour of spice could come through; it was then I thought about using it in slavinks. You can pretty much use any of your favourite sausage mince as the base, but my little jar of rub was whispering chicken mince to me. Because the result was so good, I thought to share it with you.

CHICKEN SLAVINKS
(makes 6)

1 large onion, finely diced
5 cloves garlic, finely diced
100ml olive oil
750g chicken mince
1 tablespoon Rod's Rub, Sweet Mesquite*
2 tablespoons breadcrumbs
salt & fresh ground pepper
12 rashers streaky bacon

In a frying pan, add the onion, garlic and olive oil and sweat until the onion is soft and translucent, leave to cool. Place the chicken mince in a bowl and add the cooled onion and garlic, Rod's Rub, Sweet Mesquite, breadcrumbs and season with salt and pepper. To help the chicken mince stay together and not crumble, work the mixture with your hands for about five minutes, this develops the collagen which sticks it together. Divide the chicken mince into six portions, then lay 2 pieces of bacon crosswise, put a patty of chicken mince in the middle and lay the bacon over to enclose the filling. Repeat with the rest of the ingredients. Grill or fry on a low heat, until the bacon is nicely browned and the chicken cooked through.

*If you don't have Rod's Rub, well what's stopping you? Okay, maybe a snowstorm. You could substitute smoked paprika instead or a few drops of liquid smoke and regular paprika, or even your own favourite rub.

Streaky bacon crosswise, ready for filling


Finished slavink with the bacon ends tucked under



The picture that could get me excommunicated as a writer from Get Your Grill On, slavinks in the frying pan.


On the plate and very tasty they were.