Back over the summer, Team TailgateJoe competed in their first cooking competition, The Great Hot Dog cookoff. Well, despite being the second to last hot dog to be judged, we came in 2nd place overall
out of 20 chefs, most of which were returning competitors and past champions. We are pretty happy with our first dip into the competitive cooking arena, and plan on knocking it out of the park next summer, as well as competing in a few other competitions.
The hot dog we served is a competition spec Mexican Hot Dog we normally serve, which we dubbed “The Sanchize” in honor of Jets qb Mark Sanchez. We added a few components, stepped up the quality of a few, and went with a larger frank in coming up with our award winner. Here is how we make it.
Ingredients:
- Hot dogs, we used a Nathans 1/4 lb hot dog, and good full flavored all beef thick frank will do
- Slab bacon sliced thick, we used the same guy who makes the bacon Peter Luger’s uses, just buy the best quality double smoked slab bacon you can and slice it thick
- Joe’s home made guacamole
- Sour cream
- Pickled red onions
- cotija cheese, can be found in most supermarkets or mexican grocery stores
- 1 pound unsalted butter, softened
- 1 large bunch cilantro leaves, washed and dried, around 3 cups firm packed
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- split top new england style hot dog or lobster roll buns, wegmans and pepperidge farm are popular brands nation wide
Directions:
- Make the cilantro butter, combine butter (cubed), salt, pepper in a food processor for 2 minutes to blend. Can be stored in a ziplock bag
- Butter the outside sides of the buns with cilantro butter and grill or place in pan to toast
- Grill bacon strips
- Grill hot dogs, this should not need an explanation
- Lay bacon strip along one side inside bun
- Spread Guacamole along the opposite side inside the bun
- Place dog in bun
- Top with sour cream, then pickled red onions, and crumbled cotija cheese
- Stick it in your mouth-hole already!!!
Here is a few pics of the Sanchize dog, along with some pics of the other entries and the event.
