Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Homemade Chicago Dogs

When we used to live closer to it, Sammy's Taste of Chicago was one of our favorite weekly stops. The business had a Sunday special: Chicago hot dogs for $1. It was always great to have those dogs for such a great price.

Some of our favorite dishes are ones in which we re-create dishes from restaurants, as we've done before. And recently, fellow Wisconsin food blogger Dax posted a recipe for his version of The Milwaukee Dog, only increasing my urge to taste a great all-beef frank.


We did change a few things: We omitted the banana peppers because we like them, but don't love them; we used regular hot dog buns because we couldn't find one with poppyseeds (know where we can? Leave a comment; but we did use an all-beef, Chicago-style hot dog.

5 comments:

Lo said...

Hot dogs are great summer food, and we're always on the look-out for great new ways to dress them up. Our latest favorite have been bison dogs from a local farm... next up are the Strauss (humanely raised) veal dogs.

So, what makes a "Chicago" dog a Chicago dog? I don't think I've every really been clear on that, since there are so many variations. Is there a difference in the casing? The toppings?

Melissa said...

I've been told that a Chicago dog is an all beef frank with a natural casing.

EatWisconsin said...

I think you can get Poppyseed buns at Woodman's but that's the only place I have seen them.

I am a Chicago Dog purist. In my mind (and I am not alone) the Chicago Dog must contain:

Poppyseed bun
All beef, natural casing hotdog (I like Vienna Beef) You need natural casing to get that "snap"
Yellow Mustard
Atomic Green colored relish
Onion
Pickle spear laid across top
Tomatoes
Celery salt
Sport peppers (though some say this is optional)
NO KETCHUP!

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Margie said...

I second EatWisconsin's definition of a Chicago Dog though sport peppers are not optional on my dog. I'll admit to using Dijon mustard instead of yellow, a practice denounced by my husband who insists on yellow. One of our kids adds ketchup... where did we go wrong?