Merry Christmas!

christmas, holidays, hot dogs, humor, meat, sausage | December 25, 2013 | By

Meat Nativity - Cause nothing says Christmas more than a pig in a blanket Jesus

The best hot dogs put the toppings on first

Which is better? The Chicago dog with mustard, relish, tomates, onion, pickles, jalapeno peppers, pepper, bun....or The chili dog from Coney Island hot dogs with chili, cheese, and onions? No matter what, the best hot dogs have the toppings on bottom.

This one is new to me entirely, but it does make sense.

If you’re the type who only adds a bit of ketchup or mustard or maybe the occasional scoop of relish, then this isn’t going to apply to you.

The best hot dogs - Picture shows the anatomy of the Chicago Dog including seasoned bun, yellow mustard, chopped sweet pickle relish, sliced fresh tomatoes, a basic hot dog, chopped onions, a dill pickle speer, two or three jalapeno peppers, ground black pepper, and the rest of the bun.  Put them on top to avoid them spilling out.

But if you’re the type who loves to pile on the toppings (Chicago hot dogs, anybody?), then you know all too well the pains of trying to keep all those toppings in place atop a slippery hot dog while you chow down.

So for the best hot dogs, what you’re actually supposed to do is start putting some of those toppings on first instead of on top. Don’t simply put on the ketchup and mustard because that will obviously make the bread soggy by the end of your dog. Instead, put the sturdier items on the very bottom like onions or pickles (or even lettuce, if that’s your style). Then pile on some of the other wetter ingredients.

Now if you’re at home, that’s pretty easy, but people shy away from doing that at a hot dog stand, right? So just ask the guy for your bun while they’re grilling the dog and you’ll cut your waiting time in half, too. Once you place the hot dog on top of all of the ingredients, it’ll somewhat squish into the middle and you’ll have the perfect hot dog before you know it.

Halloween party foods – Mummies in a blanket

Halloween mummies made with hot dogs and biscuit dough

Pretty cute, huh?

They didn’t start off that cute, though.

I tried several different styles of wrapping before I settled on one that worked.

Halloween mummies made with hot dogs and fridge biscuit dough - uncooked

The ones in the upper left hand corner are how they showed to do them in the tutorial I was looking at. They ended up looking more like Taliban mummies instead, though, and the dough kept slipping.

Halloween mummies made with hot dogs and refridgerated biscuit dough - uncooked pigs in the blanket

Actually, the biscuit dough kind of slips regardless. If you try to bundle it up on the bottom, then it ends up unraveling sometimes or just “falling off” entirely, which doesn’t really finish the look off very well, does it? Ultimately, I settled on just 2-3 strips for the cap and using the rest around the lower 2/3rds until it looked more like a coiled up snake than a turban.

Mummies for Halloween - Refrigerated canned biscuits and hot dogs like pigs in blankets

I like the final results of them that way better, too. The bottom row looks much better than the top row does. The first three are a jumbled turban/diaper mess and the last one looks like a swaddled baby. Oops.

Halloween mummy with hot dog and biscuit wrapped around it

I ran into the issue of what to put the eyes on with, too, though. We eat pigs in the blanket with ketchup. It makes sense to dip hot dogs in that, right? So I wanted to use that as the decoration as well. I much prefer when my creations are actually edible as is, but ah well.

Turns out, the mustard works out a lot better because it shows up on the hot dog:

 
Halloween mummy with biscut dough turban - pigs in blankets
 
Too bad some of the mummy ‘butts’ kept falling off regardless of how I had wrapped them, though. Oops!
 
To make your own, cut hot dogs in half. Open a can of refrigerated biscuits. Roll each biscuit dough circle into a “snake” like you used to do with playdough. Wrap around the upper 1/4 and lower 2/3 of each hot dog half, using whatever wrapping technique works for you. Have the kids do it instead if you’re self-conscious about yours turning out funky. Cook based on your biscuit package directions and add eyes using whatever condiments you prefer.