Wiener Wednesday: Chicago Dog

On the recommendation of my friend Food Blog John, proprietor of the excellent Food & Wine Hedonist, I made a Chicago Dog for this week’s frank.

Having never been to Chicago, I had not sampled a Chicago Dog, so I was looking forward to a new frankfurter experience.

And since I’ve typed Chicago 3 times I have to go here:

Absolutely divine.

But I digress.

The Chicago Dog boils down to this: hot dog, poppy seed bun, sweet relish, pickle, onion, mustard, celery salt, sport pepper.

Cool. I can do all that. But what the hell is a sport pepper? All I knew is that there was no way in hell the Safeway was going to carry them.

I did some research and didn’t quite get answer on what was a suitable substitute, so I had to ask the be-all-end-all. I consulted The Martha.

I might not know what a sport pepper is, but I do know what it is not. And it is not a pepperoncini. According to Food Blog John, the sport is less spicy and not as vinegary. But the pepperoncini is what I had. Plus! Martha said it was OK. And who am I to question Miss Omnimedia? So I split the difference: I nipped the tip of the peppers, and rinsed them to drain the vinegar.

Ah ingenuity!

I also fudged a poppy seed bun by brushing a hot dog roll with margarine, sprinkling it with poppy seeds, and baking it for a few minutes. I didn’t have sweet relish in the house so I chopped up some bread & butter pickles.

Here is the completed Chicago Dog with a little iceberg wedge salad:

The dog was good. Solid. I am sure that this is one of those things that if I had it in Chicago, in the right place, with the proper ingredients this frank would absolutely sing. And what I did with the peppers worked–they weren’t overwhelmingly spicy nor vinegary.

There is definitely a lot of stuff on this one. Which really makes it a meal. One was enough for me. And with the tomato and onion there’s some nutritional value, right?

Oh, and I officially love celery salt. It’s so—-salty! It tastes like Old Bay. Which, looking at the tin of Old Bay, celery salt is one of the main ingredients. That and paprika. So now that I have a jar in my spice rack I will be putting celery salt on everything.

So a big thank you to John for the recommendation. Do any of you guys have a recommendation or a challenge for me? You know how to find me.

And in closing, I also just stole this video from Food Blog John’s blog. I hadn’t seen it in a long time and it raises the age-old question that all cat owners must ask at one time or another (or in my case at least once a day):

What are they feeding you?

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2 thoughts on “Wiener Wednesday: Chicago Dog

  1. Oh, yum! Sign me up for a Chicago-style dog! Been interested in trying one since I first read about them in The Straight Dope years ago. Great post!

  2. First, thanks to WordPress for again not showing your post on my Reader. Glad you enjoyed making and eating the hot dog. I was back in the Chi last weekend and had a couple of them for breakfast. OK, not officially breakfast, but it was 4am. I’ve seen many places serve Chicago-style hot dogs across the country. So hopefully you’ll get to try one with the real sport peppers. The other big difference is the relish. The real stuff is like nuclear green.

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