Friday, August 23, 2013

A St. Louis Take on the Chicago Hot Dog

Next week, we have a Man's Guide to Hot Dogs coming your way. Here's one of my favorite hot dog recipes to get you pumped up for that.

This is my take on the Chicago-style hot dog. If you've ever been to the Windy City, you've surely noticed the ubiquitous presence of this culinary delight.

This thing is quite the upgrade from your typical hot dog. It can be a bit challenging to eat one of these. Don't worry, if you can handle a burrito from Qdoba or a decked out sub sandwich, you'll manage.

My version doesn't include a poppy-seed bun, relish, sport peppers or celery salt. But, it has the rest of the garden goodies.

I also grill my dogs, rather than boil them. I prefer a crispy casing.

So, grab a pack of your favorite hot dogs (don't worry, we'll tell you what you should be buying next week). Grill em, boil em, microwave em, drop em on the dash on a sunny day ... warm them up somehow.

For your toppings, slice a pickle and carve some wedges out of a tomato. You'll also need to finely chop an onion. (I prefer the Vidalia onion's mellow taste.)

Place the wiener on the bun, and arrange the tomato to one side with the pickle on the other side. Drop the onion down the middle and put some strips of mustard on that bad boy.

Ketchup is pretty much the only thing you're not supposed to put on a hot dog. But, my wife likes to live dangerously, so do whatever makes you happy.

Like I said, for a true Chicago dog, add sport peppers, relish and hit it with a sprinkle of celery salt. It's really an ingenious way to get a serving of veggies in with your tubular meat. Props to our northern neighbors for thinking this thing up.

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