As a native New Yorker, I grew up knowing only one way to really eat a hot dog, with sauerkraut and mustard. Over the years, I'd occasionally add baked beans from time to time, but that was about as far as the adventure went. Then, one day in the winter of 2012 while playing golf on a glorious February day in North Carolina, I stopped in the clubhouse at the turn and had my friend grab me a hot dog with kraut while I went to the bathroom. When I returned, I grabbed my hot dog and headed back to the golf cart. As I went to eat the dog, I realized my cabbage topping wasn't kraut but coleslaw. At first I was slightly disgusted, but then I took a bite and my hot dog eating habits were forever changed. A little bit of New York died inside of me that day. And since then, I've been open to the idea that anything, EXCEPT KETCHUP, can belong on a hot dog.
This week's cooking challenge was to come up with a creative hot dog for the "dog days of summer" that we're currently experiencing. For my inspirational dish, I kept the coleslaw but also went back to my roots, with my pastrami dog. Here's how I put this beauty together:
First, I split an all beef hot dog open to give it more surface area and heated it on a griddle plan with a few slices of homemade pastrami (not my own recipe, and store-bought would certainly work) and a butter soft sandwich roll.
On the bottom of the toasted bun, I layered on some store-bought coleslaw for a creamy crunch. The mayo in the slaw also keeps the bottom bun from getting soggy.
Then I added the hot dog.
The mustard had to come next because what's a hot dog without the mustard! Because the pastrami has some spice, I opted for the plain yellow variety instead of the spicy brown, but that would be great, too!
Just like a hot dog has to have mustard, the same goes for pastrami, so that comes next.
And it wouldn't be a New York deli-type sandwich without pickles. I used dill pickle chips, but a long slice of a half sour pickle would be fantastic, too.
I topped that bad boy off with the top bun and off I went to eat with a side of potato chips.
But halfway through eating this crazy hot dog, I had a revelation. Why are the chips on the side? So I opened up the bun and piled on a few chips for some added crunch! Fantastic!!!