Saturday, May 29, 2021

Getting ready to grill supremely

Happy almost-Memorial Day! I'm ready to kick off the unofficial beginning of summer (and prepare for Yinzerella's upcoming Wiener Wednesdays) with some hot dog recipes. 

The last time I looked at The New Hotdog Cookbook (Mettja C. Roate, copyright 1968, reprinted 1983) for Memorial Day, I focused on salads featuring hot dogs so cooks could get their gloppy, disgusting salads and cases full of discarded animal parts in the same place. This year, I'm going to be nice and focus on something people are more likely to actually want to do with their dogs. Let's look at the grilling chapter!

This section of the book mostly focuses on classing up the usual grilled dogs by flavoring them with something other than barbecue sauce. Want to go fancy and marinate in olive oil, wine, and herbs?

Then the Oregano Hot Dog Grill is perfect! You just have to plan ahead to start the marinating process at least three hours before you want to start grilling (and have a red wine you don't mind wasting on hot dogs).

If you'd like something a little sweeter (Maybe you're the sausage-n-syrup type. Shudder.), there's the Hot Dog and Spiced Crab Apple Grill.

I'm always kind of shocked that canned crab apples seem like they used to be a common enough thing, and here they're threaded on a skewer with hot dogs, then basted with honey, spices, and just a tiny amount of brandy so you're not wasting too much booze on them. There's your salty-sweet combination if you're a fan.

If you're like me and love both adverbs AND weirdo old sandwich combinations that make you wonder if people used to just slap anything on bread and declare it a sandwich, there's always Dogs Grilled Supremely.

They're easy! Cut the franks into quarters (lengthwise and widthwise), arrange beautifully on white bread, and then splop on a tomato sauce/ cheese/ onion/ oil/ olive/ seasoning mixture. This is broiled, so I'm not really sure why it's in the grilling chapter, but it's here for when you can't decide whether you want chopped-up hot dogs or a substandard pizza and decide to split the difference.

Have a not-too-substandard holiday weekend (if you are lucky enough to have one), and don't let the wieners take all the alcohol!

4 comments:

  1. Now I'm hoping someone makes fancy red wine marinated hot dogs for us to read all about. I keep forgetting it is a holiday weekend because I work on Monday anyway. Actually, it doesn't bother me to be working too much, because as you pointed out, everyone will have their grill going, so I can't go outside anyway. I like the "grilled" recipe that uses a broiler, all the smell and smoke is contained in one home instead of wafting all over the neighborhood.

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    1. I keep forgetting it's a holiday weekend too since I don't actually have classes this year. I just happened to realize it was a holiday when I wondered what to post for today.

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  2. I keep forgetting it's a holiday weekend even though I have Monday off. I'm tempted to make the wine marinated weenies. It sounds like a good use of some Two-buck Chuck.

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    1. I hope they're good if you make them! If a wine is made for marinating weenies, it's probably Two-Buck Chuck.

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