Hot Dog Ingredients
We love our hot dogs don't we? It is just the best thing, taking a break from work, going down to the stall where the yummiest, hottest dogs are being made and bite into one of those beauties! As fast as fast food gets. A hot dog is also a popular party food. But how would you like it if you could make your hot dogs at home? I mean, on cold winter nights, if you get a sudden craving for hot dogs, you can scarcely run out and get yourself a hot dog. To enjoy the hot dog at home, you need to know the hot dogs ingredients and how to make a hot dog. And that is precisely what this article is about!
The Hot Dog
Where did this all-American delicacy come from? It is said the first commercial sale of hot dogs was by German immigrants to the United States. That's right! The Germans brought the hot dog to the US. That perhaps explains why they are called frankfurters!
The thing about hot dog ingredients is that the stuff you put inside your hot dog largely varies upon your taste! So you can make a custom-made hot dog to your liking as there are no hard and fast rules regulating the ingredients in hot dogs. They're all quite different! Let's start with the meat.
There are 4 main types of meat that go into a hot dog. The first type is called All Beef. Like the name suggests, the all beef dog is made purely of beef and there ought not to be soybean protein or other milk solid based fillers added. The second type of meat is called Kosher. The kosher meat is again all-beef, but there is a liberal amount of garlic added to accentuate the flavor of the hot dog. Then there is the Meat dog, which contains both pork meat and beef meat. Usually the proportion of the hot dog is around 40% pork and 60% beef. And lastly there is the Frankfurter which has around 3.5% fillers and a combination of different meats. You can either simply heat the meat to soften it or fry it in olive oil.
Due to concerns raised by the public regarding the health hazards of overconsumption of red meat hot dogs-researchers have said that people who consume hot dogs on a daily basis face a 20% increased risk of colorectal cancer, due to high quantities of fat, salt, sodium nitrate and nitrite-we can also find hot dogs made from chicken meat and turkey meat.
The second thing that matters most in a hot dog, is the garnish. The garnishing is again your own choice as you have a host of ingredients that go with the hot dog to support you. While black pepper and mustard remain the norm, you can try something new like coleslaw, salsa, jalapeno, cheese, ketchup, sauerkraut, mayonnaise and onions.
The last part which makes up your hot dog is the bun. Here too you have several variations like the normal bread, bread with Italian seasoning, cheesy bread and corn bread.
How to Make a Hot Dog
Making a hot dog is really simple. First, you gather all the ingredients specified above. Then you heat or fry the meat, depending on how you like it. Put it in the bun with your choice of garnish and voila! Your hot dog is ready! Each person has his own taste and there is a hot dog to satisfy each one's own preferred taste. Now you know what you need in order to make a hot dog. So go on have fun!
