Big Juicy contributes to Dry January with a non-alcoholic version of scotch eggs. These sausage covered eggs are an easy and delicious appetizer for any time of year.
Smoked Scotch Eggs
Ingredients
1 lb breakfast sausage
6 hard or soft boiled eggs, peeled
Directions
Portion out meat into 6 equal portions. Working with one egg at a time, press the sausage into a 4-inch disc and wrap it around the egg making sure to completely cover it and healing up any cracks. Repeat with remaining eggs. Refrigerate for 1 hour.
Heat smoker to 250 degrees and place scotch eggs onto grate. Cook for about 1 hour 15 minutes. Serve with mustard cream sauce.
Join Big Juicy outdoors as he smokes up one of his favorite appetizers — Jalapeño Chicken Poppers. These are chicken thighs stuffed with jalapeños and cream cheese, wrapped with bacon, and smoked to perfection.
Jalapeño Chicken Poppers
Ingredients
6 boneless skinless chicken thighs, trimmed and cut into 3rds
1 teaspoon of cajun seasoning (Tony Cachere’s)
9 strips of bacon, cut in half
3 jalapeño peppers, stemmed, seeded and cut into 3rds (6 pieces)
8 oz cream cheese
toothpicks
1/2 cup of your favorite BBQ sauce
Directions
Get fire started in your smoker, and bring to about 250-300 degrees. If you are using an oven, adjust a cooking rack to the middle position and place a bakers rack inside a rimed baking sheet Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
Season chicken thigh pieces with cajun seasoning and prep other ingredients.
Working with one piece at a time, stuff jalapeño pieces with cream cheese. Wrap chicken piece around jalapeño and secure with a toothpick. Take a piece of bacon, stab it on the toothpick and wrap it around the chicken securing the other end on the toothpick. This should be 90 degrees to the direction the chicken was wrapped (this helps hold things together). Repeat with the remaining components.
Smoke at 250-300 degrees for about 1 hour or until brown and crisp. Lightly glaze the poppers with BBQ sauce and continue to smoke for another 15 minutes.
Dive into aviation history as Big Juicy tells the story of an Englishman, Vernon Castle, and how a professional dancer, some crazy animal dances, Canadians, monkeys, and biplanes, weave together to tell a tale of Texas aviation history.
What’s Juicy?
While Canadians did come train in Fort Worth to escape the colder weather, the part about the origin of “snow bird” is made up.
Vernon and Irene were animal lovers and promoted a bunch of dances with animal names. They had several family pets and Irene eventually set up a pet adoption organization named Orphan’s of the Storm. She valued this above her dancing career.
Vernon did fly in 300 missions during WWI which is remarkable. It gained the recognition of the French and they awarded him the Croix de Guerre (War Cross). He trained pilots in Canada and was eventually sent to Benbrook.
He did indeed have a pet monkey named Jeffrey. He flew with him and is said to make cocktails for the airmen during leave. The Curtiss JN4 “Jenny” had a top speed of 75 mph and weighed less than a ton. The instructor would sit in the back (not the front). I am not sure if Jeffrey helped Vernon out or was just there for company.
Even though the instructor usually sits in back, Vernon chose to sit up front on the day of his death. The comment about not flying until you land was from a Todd Snider song.
The dramatic details of his crash were from the Star Telegram. I assume they are true although I did add the stuff about Jeffrey screaming. Vernon was the 5th person to die in a training accident that week.
The funeral pictures are pretty impressive. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a funeral that big. He is buried in New York, and Irene, although she married a few more times, is buried next to him.
The memorial in Benbrook is further south than the probable crash location. Although the airfield is not there anymore, it used to run along Mercedes Street between Winscott Road and US 377. Here is an overlay of the airfield over a current satellite photo.
The movie is real although I don’t think they thought that much about the title. Irene acted as an advisor and proved to be difficult to work with. The Worth theater no longer exists in downtown Fort Worth.
The story of Vernon Castle is fascinating. The life that this man led in such a short amount of time (he died at 30) is both humbling and impressive.
