A Family Recipe - Re-invented

You're about to discover how classically midwest my cooking background is. In our household we often whipped together this simple, but mixed up recipe because it was cheap and had your basic meat/potatoes/cheese combo - the lifeblood of any Illinoisian. Or is it Illinoisite?

Take your run a da mill hot dog. If you have a favorite brand go for it. I do Bar S because it's cheap or Ball Park (turkey/beef/pork) - cuz they plump when they cook em (insert namebrand plug here!!). Or if you have a local butcher that serves a nice dog, go for that. It's preferable if you take one that has no casing, and is sealed together and pre-cooked. You could do a casing'd dog but you'd prolly haveta boil it first and then work with it. The reason I say that is that you want to cut the dog lengthwise about half way through and then cook it and allow the slice to puff out so you can stuff it later. An intestinal casing can't be cut before cooking unless you want all the porky guts to squidge out. Blegh.

The original recipe has you stuff that sliced dog with mashed potaters and top with chedda and broil it. Simple and sweet. But as my cooking skills evolved I played around with the recipe. One of the things I modified over time was boiling the dog in water seasoned with celery salt. If y'all don't use celery salt on yo dogs, start doing it! Something about that spice just blends so well with dogs. The major revision I added, however, was incorporating a bun. This does make it a LOT more bulkier and harder to eat a lot in one sitting, but it also makes it a finger food where as you kinda haveta eat a dog/tater/cheese combo with a fork/knife. Besides, I fucking love bread, so it only made it better in my book.

I remember my family had a different opinion on the subject. I've been living away from home for several years now and visited last year. When I did, I decided to cook the family recipe - completely forgeting that they never included the bun. Hell, when I started boiling with the celery salt the groans were already coming out, "Why are you boiling it with celery salt!? Celery salt is only on a regular hot dog, not in this style of dog!" Then I started steaming some buns. Now, I've never seen steamed buns outside of my household so I figured it was common place to do this at our place. You basically can steam it in a double boiler or wrap the dog in a damp paper towel and microwave for 15-40 sec; depending on time constraints. So when I started double boiling the buns I was freaking out when my family started dividing into factions. One side was willing to try new things but the others refused to have the recipe on a bun. It was quite comical as I had to stop cooking and find out who was fine with a bun or wanted the original. A Protein-Carbohydrate line was clearly drawn in the sand. Good times.

Now, I've been cooking the bun variation for some time, but I had a lady friend over and wanted to explore some new options. One of the primary differences is that I didn't boil the dog, but grilled instead. Which isn't a suprise to my fans as most of my recipes are bbq'd. So I came up with a damn good plan...

I sprinkled the dogs with celery salt, after slicing them lengthwise and throwing them on the grill. That way the celery salt will be toasted into the skin of the dog. Nom nom, right!?

There really isn't any trick to cooking pre-cooked dogs, just that you prolly shouldn't close the lid and just watch them like a hawk. I'm not a huge fan of blacked out dogs that are mainly flaky burnedness. Blegh. So I like to turn them often and make sure they get the plumpiness and brownness they deserve.

Components that will come into play that I never used before: grill a jalapeno and a yellow onion. The jalapeno will be sliced up and placed in the doggy's trough.

Whilst cooking the dogs you could be making the mashed potaters. Since I'm a poor hungry doctor (PhD student) I do instant, but by all means do home cooked if that's your thing. Follow the box's recipe of course or follow your own mashed potaters recipe. As you guessed, I toss in some Tony Chachere's. And as a modification, I toss in chopped grilled onion which makes a very unique flavor. At this point you can throw in anything you wish into the taters. One thing I've done that makes a nice zing is sliced up pepperoni.

Once the taters are ready, go ahead and scoop those bad boys into the dogs that have already been planted into the buns and stuffed with jalapeno. Then it's pretty easy as you layer cheese atop and broil it. Pull it out in 3-8 mins and you should have a golden brown cheese topping with slightly burnt bun.

If you can, enjoy it with a handsome man or beautiful lady

and of course a bottle of beer

Taco Pizza

After having a similar pizza at CPK, I've been gagging to attempt making a taco pizza. To get in the right frame when cooking this be sure to be drinking a Mexican beer or maybe a margarita although I think pizza and beer go well together. I had Corona with lime and salt.

As always with my pizzas, have your oven pre-heated to 425. Make the dough according to my previous instructions, with Tony Chachere's of course. I made the salsa with chopped serrano pepper, freshly squeezed lime juice, diced tomatillos, diced red onion all mixed in with diced tomatoes and green chiles (I used a canned tomatoes/chiles that worked just fine). You can add whatever you wish to the salsa to customize it like corn or spicier peppers.

For the red sauce I used the same Ragu I used before but added freshly chopped basil, sea salt and sugar this time. The basil and sugar add a nice sweetness that will tame the spicyness.

I always use 80/20 ground beef, so go ahead and mix that with pork chorizo. I used about 1 part chorizo to 2 parts beef. Toss that in a very hot skillet on medium heat and add fresh lime juice and after stirring every so often add some taco seasoning. This will heat for about 10 to 15 mins and it may be hard to tell when the meat is done because the chorizo masks the browning of the beef.

Spread the sauce on the pizza crust and layer the meat generously and sprinkle cheese over it (I used the same combo as last time, colby jack and mozzarella). Cook in the oven for about 5 to 8 mins before adding the salsa. Take it out when the dough is golden brown. Cover it with chopped greens and flat noodle chow mein noodles that replicate the crispy taco shell. Also dallop some hefty amounts of sour cream and you have yourself a sexy taco pizza.

Bacon-wrapped Jalapeno

Yay! More bacon.

Take a jalapeno and lop off the tail end a bit to make a cap. Scoop out all the seedy bits. Stuff it with cream cheese. This is where you can get creative with what you wanna stuff it with. A friend suggested pre-cooked chicken bits.

Wrap it up with thin cut bacon a couple times making sure the cap is on securely. To combat the overly spiciness of a whole grilled jalapeno, I dredged the mouth burner with some brown sugar.

Delectable!