Food for Thought: Hot Dogs

First, a brief history. Sausages were the precursor to hot dogs, and may have originated in Frankfurt, Germany. They started being sold as hot dogs around 1870 on Coney Island in New York. In case you are an alien, hot dogs are tubes of meat (typically beef, or a combo of other meats) served on a bun with a variety of toppings available Also check out this wiki page of hot dog variations by region.

Hot dogs are like a good pair of jeans - they are easy to accessorize. Different color denim - different types of meat. A belt? Ketchup. I like hot dogs because the flavor in them is basic, but they are easy to dress up, and stylize with a pair jacket or any number of other toppings. Okay, that’s enough of that metaaphor.

Instead of a metaphor, let me tell you about a mountain of gluttony that I scaled late last year. I was on vacation in Phoenix, Arizona and on one of our last nights in town, we went to Alice Cooperstown restaurant near the stadium downtown. Co-owned with Randy Johnson, the pitcher who exploded a fucking bird during Spring Training in 2001, the restaurant features a menu item named for Johnson, the Big Unit. (FYI, the video incorrectly identifies the bird as a duck. It was actually a dove. And his name is Johnson, not Jackson. I think they might be mislabeled because the MLB has removed every other video of the incident.)

Weighing in at one full pound and measuring 22 inches and served on a full baguette, this meal is also served with two sides. This daunting dog was featured on Man versus Food as the fully loaded Big Unit. Plus sides. I’m not totally insane, and I wasn’t high, so I stayed safe with the sides of chili and fries.

Because I’m The Man, I managed to finish my Big Unit and it’s accompanying side dishes. My two friends that I was competing against did not fare as well as I did. B ate about half of his monster, and K chickened out. He peeled the casing off of the meat, didn’t work on the bread, and still didn’t finish the Vienna Beef.
Above is a picture of me holding my portion of the Big Unit. If you should chose to eat something this size, I would recommend hot sauce or ketchup because the dog got bland after a while.

I was inspired to write this post because hot dogs for me are a good stand by food when you aren’t sure what you want to flavor your food with. It’s easy to go sweet (ketchup), salty (cheese), or spicy (Siracha). I made two unique hot dog blends recently and wanted to share them. Today’s selection, show immediately below,
was on a bed of baked beans, with corn and American cheese and Siracha and ketchup. Below is my other design, a chili cheese dog with a Mexican cheese blend and salsa.
As I leave you with this information to digest, I want to know what makes your perfect hot dog, and how you try to accessorize it.

Smoke well,
XY

PS. hot dogs are also known as wieners. WIENERS I SAY!

Lasagna

I'm planning to make lasagna this weekend and, if all goes as planned, you can follow along through the steps. I usually go "off-book" (as in recipe book...obvi) when I cook and eyeball the amounts of ingredients that I add, but I'll try my damnedest to keep up with what I add and/or document it all photographically so that we know exactly how to re-make the dish if it's good and so anyone else who accesses this page can try to make it to.

First, the ingredients. Now, this is only what we're planning on putting in it right now but I usually raid the spice cabinet a few times when I'm in the middle of recipes so this is subject to change. Also note that I'm making the sauce from scratch so many of these ingredients are for that.

1 29 oz can tomato puree
1 29 oz can crushed tomatoes
1 6 oz can of tomato paste
4 large hot Italian sausages (it's okay if it's in the casing...we can cut off the part we don't want pretty easily)
1/4-1/2 lb ground beef (we're going with 85/15 because we like the flavor)
medium-large Spanish or yellow onion
1 medium shallot
1 head of garlic (okay, that's a lot...but we haven't decided how much to use or whether or not to roast it first so we're keeping our options open for now)
1 green bell pepper
1 fresh Serrano chili pepper (this is a shot in the dark - we know we want spicy but we don't know peppers well enough to figure out which variety will give us what we want)
1 box no-boil lasagna noodles
1 small container ricotta cheese
1 cup grated mozzerella cheese
1 cup parmesan/romano cheese blend
2 medium-small zucchinis
1 lb frozen spinach
2 fresh tomatoes
~2 tbsp olive oil
salt
pepper

It looks like a lot of ingredients but they're all relatively inexpensive, especially considering the sheer volume of food that it will produce.

So here's what's going to happen. I'm going to pack a bowl and watch some Food Network to get myself revved up and then I'm going to cook the sauce. After the chopping and meat browning is done and the ingredients are assembled I'll let it simmer together for anywhere from 2-4 hours and probably do another minor cooking project which is yet to be determined and may or may not be related to this recipe. Once the sauce is finished I'll make some sort of cheese blend sauce and prep the veggies. When I finish THAT I'll go ahead and assemble the whole thing and then refrigerate it until tomorrow night, at which time the lovely boyfriend and myself will enjoy dinner, wine, and a movie.

Check back later for my progress and possibly some pictures!

Sous chef comments!

Even though I was just the sous chef for the stuffed shells and the burger experiment, I have a few quick notes of my own.

Even though our stuffed shells didn't come out too well, I do think that there is something to be said for blending recipes. I know that my co-author and head chef XY doesn't like that, but some of my best dishes have come from blending recipes. It won't work for baking (baking is all about chemistry and reactions and stuff), cooking is meant to be fun and experimental. Remember the line from Ratatouille - "Anyone can cook!"

Now on to the burgers. I made mine on the stove top and it was really good. I wouldn't recommend mixing the meats and seasonings well myself because if you handle ground meat too much it becomes tough. I would suggest just mixing them together so that it's blended just enough. We also let our patties rest at room temp for about 10-15 minutes before cooking them. Not sure if it's necessary, but my dad always does that and he makes GREAT burgers.

I cooked my burger medium/medium rare even though XY likes his medium/medium well. I think I get a better flavor that way but it really is personal preference. My toppings were fresh grated Asiago cheese and some chopped red onion and it was delicious. Asiago isn't quite as pungent as some other cheeses but the flavor compliments the beef nicely. The red onions added a nice crunch and the flavor cut through the grease well, but I wouldn't slice an onion just for this burger.

Moving on to the cheese crisps...

At a restaurant near my parents' house they top their caesar salad with these parmesan crisps that are really good and add a beautiful crunch to the texture of the dish. I saw Giada de Laurentiis made them on the Food Network once but I sort of forgot about it until last night.

This is a good example of blending recipes successfully. I went to the Food Network website to find her recipe (here it is), but I also liked Alton Brown's version (can't find the link - sorry!) and some others that I saw on ChowHound (a favorite foodie forum of mine). I ended up using Giada's basic formula but I went with Asiago cheese (we had it on hand already) and instead of lining a sheet with parchment paper I just greased it liberally with olive oil (or, as they say on TV, EVOO). I spread the cheese thinly and evenly into 6 circles and popped it in a preheated 350 degree oven for 5-7 minutes (if you try this watch closely - you want the cheese to become golden brown but not burn!). After they were the proper color I removed the crisps from the oven and used a spatula to transfer them from the cookie sheet to paper towels immediately. Be careful when you pull them from the oven - after they cool they get really, really crispy and brittle so you want to do this ASAP.

I know that's a big block with a lot of info, so I'm going to post a clearer, step by step recipe with pictures and variations the next time I make them (possibly tonight!).

-XX

Right Now

Watching food porn aka The Food Network. Listening to the host, Ina Garden, snap chicken bones with her bare hands. I wish this was in surround sound.

-XY