Sunday morning experiment: Homemade hotdogs

Woke up this morning and thought it might be a good idea to try my hand at making some homemade hotdogs. I don’t know why but why not. My thought was to make a beef and pork mixed hotdog and try to construct them without using a casing. Steam them first and then when time to serve, we could either pan fry or grill. Here’s how I started:

• 1 lb shoulder blade roast (it was super cheap and had good marbling)
• 1 lb pork loin with fat cap
• 2 eggs
• 1/2 C milk
• onion powder
• garlic powder
• fenugreek powder
• ground mustard
• small dash of nutmeg
• Hungarian paprika
• Smoked paprika

Grind the meat together using the smallest holed attachment. Transfer to a stand mixer and begin mixing. Add all the spices and mix until it looks uniform throughout. Add the eggs and milk and continue to mix until it has a puddingish texture. My next task was to figure out a way to get them into links. I set out a bunch of strips of plastic wrap and put the meat in a 1 gallon ziploc bag. Cut a corner off and piped out sausage looking tubes. Roll plastic wrap up and make sort of links out of it. Put in fridge for about an hour to firm up. Set up a steamer and steam hotdogs in batches for about 10-15 minutes. Once all the batches are cooked, put back in fridge until ready to use.

Since its winter, we decided to just pan fry them and serve them with some homemade french fries (we had the oil left over from last nights popcorn shrimp and fitters). Not a healthy weekend but every once in a while its worth it.

I am going to suggest that you don’t make this recipe. We just got done with dinner and if someone knows how to make a hot dog please contact me. There was just not enough fat or emulsion or something. These aren’t great. Sorry.

On the bright side, I tried a different way to make french fries. First, peel and cut up some russet potatoes in whatever “fry shape” you want. Then, boil the fries in salt water for about 15 minutes. Drain them in a colander and fry, in batches. Super crispy on the outside and tender in the middle. This is my new go to for fries.