* [Host] Barbecue for breakfast?

To some it may sound like heresy but here on Project Fire , it's business as usual.

Get ready for breakfast pizza.

Crackling crisp crust, smokey bacon and the egg is perfectly cooked.

Double grilled vegetables frittata.

Grilled vegetables, creamy eggs.

Now, this is a frittata.

And spectacular smoke roasted bacon cinnamon buns.

I love that contrast between the sweet brown sugar, the cinnamon and salty, smokey bacon.

From St. Louis Union Station, I'm Steven Raichlen.

And this is Project Fire !

(fire swooshes in) ANNOUNCER: Stephen Raichlen's Project Fire was made possible by...

This is the Big Green Egg where fire and flavor come together.

You can roast, bake, and sear with the versatility of a grill, oven, and barbecue smoker combined.

Locate a dealer at biggreenegg.com.

Fire Magic, combining style with a versatility to sear, smoke, rotisserie cook, and charcoal grill.

Crafted in America for over 80 years.

Green Mountain pellet grills built for woodfired versatility.

Truly wireless temperature starts with Maverick.

Crowd Cow.

And by the following... * [Steven] It was only a matter of time that our obsession with live fire cooking would move from dinner to lunch to the meal that gets us all going in the morning, breakfast.

Early morning grilling is one of life's most surprising pleasures.

Fire and smoke make everything taste better, from bacon to eggs to pastry.

Wake up and smell the coffee?

I prefer to wake up and smell the fire.

Scallions, and then last of all, the hot pepper flakes.

Pizza for breakfast?

I know it sounds strange, unless you're a hungover college student.

Well, this one has the requisite bacon, eggs, and cheese.

I give you the breakfast pizza, Project Fire style.

* I made the pizza dough last night and let it rise in the refrigerator overnight.

It's a honey beer pizza dough.

The recipe is on our website, or you can use your favorite pizza dough.

Start by spreading some flour out on your work surface, put the pizza on top.

And then, pat it with your fingers into a circular shape.

Now, the idea of patting with your fingers is to work air in to the dough, which will make your crust light and airy.

See the air bubbles?

That's what you're looking for.

Stretch it into a circle about 10 to 12 inches in diameter.

Next, take your pizza peel and spread it with cornmeal.

Then, fold your dough in half, transfer it to the pizza peel, and fold it back into a circle.

To assemble your pizza, first spread it with coarsely graded Gruy re cheese.

And I like to use cave aged Gruy re cheese, which has a stronger, fruitier flavor.

Next, a little freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano.

Then, some sliced shiitake mushrooms.

Bacon pieces, which you quickly brown in a frying pan, or on the grill.

Next, some thinly slivered scallion, hot pepper flakes, a little salt, a little freshly ground black pepper, and a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil.

To grill the pizza, I'm using a ceramic cooker.

I built a hot fire and pre-heated a pizza stone to about 600 degrees.

Bingo.

Now, bring your pizza over and slide it onto the pizza stone.

Then, crack three eggs onto the pizza.

Whoa, double yolkier.

Close the grill lid.

Cooking time, 8 to 10 minutes.

(fire swooshes in) It's been 10 minutes.

Behold the breakfast pizza.

Now, to make sure it's done, I like to just give it a little shake.

The eggs are no longer too runny, so we'll just slide it onto the peel.

And here's your breakfast pizza.

Pretty cool, huh?

So to serve it, I'll just cut a wedge, some egg, take a taste.

Mmm...crackling, crisp crust, pungent cheese, smokey bacon, and the egg is perfectly cooked.

The bacon and egg breakfast pizza.

It's worth getting up early to fire up your grill for.

* A frittata is a cross between an omelet and a quiche.

This one gets a double blast of flavor by being cooked, you guessed it, on the grill.

Think an Italian classic, channeling barbecue.

* First step, fire up the grill.

Load the smoker box with soaked hard wood chips.

I'm using oak, the preferred grilling wood in Italy.

For an herbal flavor, you can add a couple of sprigs of rosemary.

Place the lid on the smoker box and place the grate on the grill.

This will be a vegetable frittata.

I'm using shiitake mushroom, yellow squash, zucchini, yellow bell peppers, asparagus stalks, and scallions.

Cut them into one-inch pieces and place in a mixing bowl.

Season with sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Then, stir in extra virgin olive oil and toss to coat well.

It's useful to use a vegetable grilling grate.

This is a perforated metal pan.

The holes let the fire and smoke come through.

You see, we have nice smoke coming out of the smoker box.

Place your vegetable pieces on this vegetable grilling grate.

The beauty of a vegetable grilling grate is slide it over the smoke, the perforations allow the smoke to come through.

It's great for grilling small pieces of vegetables, which otherwise would fall through the spaces between the bars and the grates.

While, the vegetables are grilling, make the egg mixture.

It starts with eight eggs.

Oh, that's a double yolker.

Another double yolker.

That's gonna bring us a lot of luck.

Then, add a generous pinch of sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.

Take a whisk...whisk the egg mixture until well blended.

* Now, next add a little heavy cream, * and we'll do a chiffonade of fresh herbs.

We have fresh basil.

I'll tear it off the stem.

And to make a chiffonade, you roll the basil up tightly into a tube and cut across-wise into hair-thin slivers.

* Next, add about a cup of freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano cheese to the egg mixture.

Then, your thinly slivered basil, and you can strip some fresh thyme in to the frittata.

Talking very fresh vegetable and herb flavors here.

Finally, strip rosemary leaves off the stems, and finely, chop the rosemary.

* Whisk in your fresh herbs.

* The vegetables are nicely charred.

Put on your grill gloves and transfer the veggies to a sheet pan.

At this point, you wanna set up your grill for indirect grilling.

So, turn off the center burner, keep the outside burners on high and close the grill lid to build up the heat.

So, now all you have to do is add the grilled vegetables to the egg mixture.

The beauty of grilling the vegetables, makes them sweeter, gives them a kind of smokey char.

Then, stir the vegetables into the frittata mixture, and your frittata mixture is ready.

Now, heat your cast iron skillet and add about two tablespoons of butter, and swirl the pan to coat the sides with butter too.

Then, add your frittata mixture to the hot butter in the pan.

* Great.

Take the remaining cheese and sprinkle it on top of the frittata, and cut the remaining butter on top.

Then, take your frittata, place it in the center of the grill.

Once again, this is classic indirect grilling, heat on the outside, no heat in the center.

Close the grill lid and you'll indirect grill the frittata until the eggs are set.

That'll be about 20 minutes.

(fire swooshes in) It's been 20 minutes, so let's check the frittata.

And it sure looks done.

You can see the egg has shrunk back from the sides of the pan, but just to make certain, I'll insert a bamboo skewer.

Comes out clean.

Your frittata is ready.

Put on your glove, transfer the frittata to a trivet.

Then, take a paring knife and just run it around the inside of the pan.

You can give the pan a little shake to loosen the frittata.

Now, for the moment of truth.

So, place a plate over the pan, say a little prayer, and turn the frittata over.

Give it a shake, and lift the pan.

Bingo.

So there, folks, is your vegetable frittata.

And I'll just cut a slice.

* Let's see how we did.

* Mmm, grilled vegetables, creamy eggs, gentle whiff of wood smoke.

Now, this is a frittata.

* Russell Cunningham is the executive chef of Union Station St. Louis.

He's also a barbecue fanatic.

And when I heard about the breakfast he prepares at barbecue competitions, well, I had to have him on the show.

Good morning, Russell.

[Russell Cunningham] Morning, Steven.

[Steven] What do you have for us today?

[Russell] So today, I'm gonna do a bacon-stuffed cinnamon roll.

It's got a bourbon maple frosting that we're gonna put on it, and then an apple, and candied pecan topping to go with it as well.

[Steven] I am totally in.

[Russell] It is very good.

* [Steven] How do we start?

[Russell] So, we're gonna start by doing a little spice to go on bacon.

So, I've got a barbecue spice.

[Steven] All right.

[Russell] And then, this is just a little extra maple sugar.

[Steven] Ooh, nice.

[Russell] So, I just kind of mix those together.

And then, I've got some sliced bacon, and we're just gonna season this up.

* [Steven] Is there any aroma more inviting in the morning than the, the, the aroma of sizzling bacon?

[Russell] I will wake up every time, if somebody cooks bacon.

And I'm gonna crowd the pan a little bit.

[Steven] Okay.

Beautiful.

Taste your barbecue right here.

[Russell] Sure.

[Steven] Mmm, nice, sweet... [Russell] Sweet, yeah.

[Steven] All spice, cinnamon.

[Russell] All spice, cinnamon, uh, a little guajillo pepper and, uh, cocoa powder.

[Steven] Cocoa powder?

[Russell] So, once it starts cooking out a little bit, I just go through, flip them all over.

[Steven] Russell, how long have you lived in St. Louis?

[Russell] So, I've been here about eight years now.

[Steven] And what's the food scene like?

[Russell] Uh, the food scene, when I first got here was a little iffy, but it's exploded over the last couple of years.

Lot of good James Beard Award winners around, a lot of new restaurants opening.

Once, they're about half way, we're just gonna take them back out onto our plate.

* [Steven] And I see you've browned them, but still left them supple.

[Russell] Yeah.

Brown but still rollable.

[Steven] All right.

[Russell] Um, so I'm gonna use the bacon fat that's in there to kind of brown off our apples as well.

[Steven] You can't beat bacon fat for browning apples.

[Russell] I know.

Um, and if you could help me, uh, we're gonna do the filling for the cinnamon rolls... [Steven] Okay.

[Russell] ...at the same time.

I've got brown sugar... [Steven] Mm-hmm (affirmative).

[Russell] ...and cinnamon.

[Steven] Mmm, nice.

[Russell] Good stuff.

[Steven] Yep.

[Russell] A little bourbon going in there, as well.

[Steven] All right.

Always good for breakfast.

[Russell] Yeah.

[Steven] You sure, you want it in there?

(laughs) [Russell] Um, maybe a little bit in us, a little bit in there.

And then, just melted butter.

[Steven] All right.

Very good.

And then, just mix these ingredients together?

[Russell] Yep, we're just gonna mix it around.

* [Steven] Okay.

Now what?

[Russell] We're just gonna take that and spread that right onto the dough.

[Steven] Very good.

* [Steven] When I watch you make that, it seemed like you were putting a lot of cinnamon in.

But you really need that much.

[Russell] You really do.

I-it gives it that good cinnamon roll punch to it.

[Steven] Yeah.

I see what you mean.

[Russell] While, we're letting out bacon cool off, I'm gonna take that pan that we cooked the bacon in and just do some apples.

So, I got some apple slices that I already cored them out.

[Steven] Fantastic.

Yeah.

[Russell] Got all the seeds out.

And this will also help cool our pan off, 'cause we're gonna use that to bake our cinnamon rolls in as well.

[Steven] Oh, I gotcha.

Okay.

* [Russell] And we're just gonna cook them just a little bit.

Still, want a little bit of that crunch to them.

[Steven] All right.

[Russell] So, all we're doing is caramelizing some of the sugars in there a little.

* We're gonna take these out, let them cool off.

* [Steven] All right.

What's next?

[Russell] All right, so we're gonna build our cinnamon rolls.

We're gonna let our pan cool off just a little bit while we're doing that.

We're gonna get eight cinnamon rolls out of this.

[Steven] All right.

[Russell] I found the easiest way is just use a... [Steven] Pizza, pizza cutter.

[Russell] ...pizza cutter.

[Steven] In half first.

[Russell] And then just half.

[Steven] Yep.

[Russell] Half and half again.

[Steven] That is such a good tip, 'cause if you start at one end, you're never gonna get eight even pieces.

[Russell] Trying to figure out... and I've done that and I get the biggest cinnamon roll (Steven laughs) for me in the end, by the time I'm done.

* Then, on each of those strips, we're just gonna put one of our pieces of bacon.

[Steven] Oh, my gosh.

[Russell] Um, I try to keep them closer to the end to me, so that they're right in the middle when we roll them up.

And I don't worry about the size.

If a little bacon is hanging out when we're done, even better.

[Steven] Yeah.

Totally fine.

Right.

That looks fantastic.

[Russell] Thank you.

[Steven] All right.

[Russell] And then, if you wanna help... [Steven] Sure.

[Russell] ...start on that end.

[Steven] Just gonna roll it?

Like this?

[Russell] Yep.

We're just...

I kinda tuck that one end under, and then we just roll them into rolls, and I just pinch the, the end a little bit.

[Steven] All right.

[Russell] And just flatten it just the same.

[Steven] All right.

How'd you come up with this idea?

[Russell] You know; I've seen cinnamon rolls on the grill.

I've grilled bacon before.

It just made sense.

Breakfast, put them together and put a little bourbon in with it to help with the hangover the next day.

[Steven] (laughs) Okay.

We'll post the recipe for your dough on the website, but if you don't have time to make the dough, could you use something else?

[Russell] You, you can absolutely just use the canned cinnamon roll dough.

[Steven] Okay.

[Russell] You take it out of the can, unroll it, it already has your filling in there.

Then, you just add the bacon to it.

All right, so now that we've got them done, we're just gonna arrange them in our pan.

We've already got bacon grease in there, so we don't need to butter it.

* [Steven] Wow, that looks totally... [Russell] There we go.

[Steven] ...amazing.

To cook your cinnamon rolls, uh... [Russell] Yeah.

[Steven] ...we have a pellet grill, fueled it with, uh, apple wood pellets, uh... [Russell] Perfect.

[Steven] ...from an apple country.

[Russell] Yeah.

[Steven] That'll tie into, uh, the apples in the recipe.

[Russell] Yeah, and that'll give really good flavor to it.

[Steven] What temperature do you like, Russell?

[Russell] So, about 350, 375 is what we're looking for.

[Steven] All right.

Great.

* [Russell] Then, we're just gonna go right into the smoker with it.

[Steven] Beautiful.

And we're smoking as well as grilling.

[Russell] Yep.

And that'll take about anywhere from 20 to 30 minutes until the rolls are cooked through.

I've got a topping that I'm gonna make.

[Steven] Okay.

[Russell] So, we're gonna take the apples that we did in that bacon fat.

We're just gonna throw those on a board.

[Steven] Yep.

[Russell] So, we're gonna dice those up.

[Steven] Okay.

[Russell] Um, and then we've got some other stuff that we're gonna mix in with them.

[Steven] Sounds good.

Do you want some help?

[Russell] Absolutely.

Jump on in.

* [Steven] I understand you spent some time in my neck of the woods down in Miami.

[Russell] I did.

I was in, uh, Miami for a few years.

Um, also up in your neck of the woods, uh, near Baltimore for a while.

[Steven] Yeah, that's where I grew up.

Okay.

So, what's next?

[Russell] So, now that we've got these diced up, we're just gonna go into a bowl.

* So with those, I've got some candied pecans that I've chopped up.

Those are gonna go in.

[Steven] Nice.

[Russell] Some of that bacon spice, so the barbecue spice and maple sugar that we had earlier.

[Steven] Excellent.

[Russell] I'm just gonna throw a little bit of that in there.

[Steven] Wow.

[Russell] And then, orange juice, uh, just a little acidity for it as well.

[Steven] All right.

[Russell] And then honey, just to keep it all stuck together.

* There we go.

[Steven] And what's in the icing?

[Russell] So, the icing is cream cheese, butter, uh, powdered sugar, and then I add just a little vanilla, uh, a little bit more bourbon and, uh, some pure maple syrup in there as well.

[Steven] Nice.

Well, I thought since you have a great smoke thing going on... [Russell] Yeah.

[Steven] ...with the cinnamon buns, why don't we smoke the icing?

[Russell] Fantastic.

[Steven] Okay.

This is a handheld smoker, as you know.

And we'll add some apple wood sawdust, and I'll switch on the smoker, light the sawdust.

[Russell] There it goes.

Yeah.

[Steven] And you can see the smoke coming out, right?

So, we'll just fill this bowl with apple wood smoke.

* And once, it's full, I'll just switch this off and then quickly cover the bowl to trap in the smoke.

And I like to let the smoke infuse in the icing for about four minutes.

[Russell] Okay.

[Steven] And then, we can repeat as often as necessary.

[Russell] So, let's take a look.

I'm hungry and it should be ready.

[Steven] I'm, I'm psyched.

Oh, wow.

[Russell] Oh, yeah.

[Steven] Russell, that looks amazing.

* Puffed up beautifully.

[Russell] Oh yeah, those are perfect.

[Steven] They filled the pan really nicely.

See that bacon... [Russell] We're gonna get that guy right there.

[Steven] Poking seductively out.

[Russell] So, if you'll ice.

[Steven] All right, a little icing.

Icing on the top.

* [Russell] And then, we've got our apple and pecan topping.

We're just gonna put that right on top.

[Steven] Fantastic.

Russell, will you do the honors?

[Russell] Yes, absolutely.

Right into that bacon in there.

[Steven] Ah...ah... Let's do it.

* Oh, man.

That is spectacular.

I love that contrast between the sweet brown sugar, the cinnamon, and salty, smokey bacon.

[Russell] And the smoke you did on that icing is fantastic.

* [Steven] Well, here is your coffee.

[Russell] Thank you.

[Steven] Thank you so much.

Barbecue for breakfast, it's really a thing.

Thanks for watching.

See you next time.

Oh, man.

ANNOUNCER: For recipes and more live fire cooking, visit stevenraichlen.com.

You can also follow Steven Raichlen on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

"Project Fire" and the Classic "Barbecue Bible" can be ordered online at stevenraichlen.com or call this phone number for ordering and customer service.

Steven Raichlen's Project Fire is made possible by...

This is the Big Green Egg where fire and flavor come together.

You can roast, bake, and sear with the versatility of a grill, oven, and barbecue smoker combined.

Locate a dealer at biggreenegg.com.

Fire Magic, combining style with a versatility to sear, smoke, rotisserie cook, and charcoal grill.

Crafted in America for over 80 years.

Green Mountain pellet grills built for woodfired versatility.

Truly wireless temperature starts with Maverick.

Crowd Cow.

And by the following... [Steven] ...Without falling through the bars of the grate.

Yeah?

[Crew Member] You gotta look at this camera.

[Steven] I'm sorry.

Who...oh yeah, of course, I do.

A frittata is a cross between an omelet and a grill.

(laughs) A frittata is a cross between an omelet and a grill.

A frittata is a cross between a...pumpkin.

Looks pretty cool, huh?

[Matt] I'm sorry... [Steven] You got any soup for me for lunch?

[Chris] We ate it all.

[Matt] Looking at, looking at the camera.

[Steven] Oh.

[Matt] Smiling... [Steven] Oh, okay.

* *