WESTERN BACON SLIDERS WITH FRIED CHEESE CURDS

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients:

FOR THE SLIDERS

FOR THE FRIED CHEESE CURDS

Try These Holiday Cookie and Bar Recipes.

Directions:

FOR THE SLIDERS

Preheat grill to medium high heat, about 350 degrees.
Brush grill grates with oil to prevent burgers from sticking.
While the grill is preheating, form your ground beef into 6 small patties. Be careful to pack them only as much as you need to to keep them together.
Sprinkle seasoning salt and pepper to taste on both sides.
Place burgers on the grill, cooking about 5 minutes on the first side, and then flipping.
When you have cooked your burgers for 3 minutes on the second side, place a slice of cheese on top and add your buttered slider buns to a cooler part of the grill to toast them.
Assemble burgers with BBQ sauce, bacon and fried cheese curds.

FOR THE FRIED CHEESE CURDS

In a large heavy bottomed pot, pour oil (vegetable, canola, or peanut oil) so that it is 1-2 inches deep. Turn the heat onto medium high, and stay close by as it preheats.
In the meantime, you can make your batter for frying. In a medium bowl add flour, cornstarch, baking powder and salt. In another small bowl, whisk water and egg. Pour the egg mixture into the dry ingredients and whisk until smooth.
You will know your oil is ready when you can drop a bit of batter into the pot, and it immediately starts to bubble and fry. If you have a cooking thermometer, the oil should be about 350 degrees.
Dip your cheese curds into the batter and then carefully drop them into the hot oil. In order to keep them from sticking together, you can do about 8 at a time. Stir them around a bit, and when they have just turned golden brown, remove them from the oil with a metal slotted spoon and drain them on a paper towel. Repeat with remaining cheese curds.
Some of your cheese curds may ooze out a little bit. Most of mine stayed intact, but this happened to a few of them and they tasted just fine.

Notes:

Recipe for the fry batter is from Food.com.