Hot doggin’ recipes

Jack Deatherage

(4/2019) I's sitting in the car with the DW outside a restaurant in Hanover, PA scarfing down a coupla dogs flavored with yellow mustard. The DW has a dog with everything, though all I smell is onions. I almost envy her because all I taste is the mustard and the excessively sweet bun. The dog itself is unremarkable. I wipe the yellow out of my mustache and reach for the french fries. This time I remembered to grab some salt packets. They never salt the fries here, possibly because the gray haired crowd which usually populates the restaurant is on salt restriction. I enjoy the fries more'n the dogs.

"We're such creatures of ritual."

The DW laughs. "We've been stopping here after each visit to my eye doctor for thirty years. I came here with Mom and Dad when this place opened back in 1973."

"That's what- forty-five years? You'd think they'd have-"

"Don't start." She glares at me. "This is tradition!"

I "Yes dear" and launch into what has become tradition for me- explaining what I'd offer customers if I ran such an establishment. The DW sighs and steals a couple of my fries before she settles into the seat to endure a pontification she figures will last the thirty minutes it takes to get us home. It's not like we haven't done this before.

The cool thing about ritualistic babbling is- thinking can run alongside the flapping lips. I'm recalling bread recipes in the background. Beginning with all-purpose flour and a piece of fresh yeast cake I follow, sort of, a recipe for Crusty German Rolls - Brotchen.

Encouraged by those results, I began substituting "Turkey Red" organic wheat flour for some of the all-purpose. "Wow" was the general response from the various librarians and tattooers who sampled the rolls. I immediately switched to fresh milled einkorn and spelt for the next two batches and jumped the rolls to an entirely new level of flavor.

"This is the best bread you've ever made!" Tattoo Don- Pillar of the Community said before pleading, "Please tell us you wrote this recipe down!" (This is likely a tradition in his shop now.)

"Umm... I- uhh..." (I did record the experiment. Though I have no idea where the notes are now.)

A few days after the hot dogs, I wander down the hill to the tattoo shop on the square of this place. A client in the chair calls out to me. "How do I get to sample some of the bread you write about? I'm looking for bread for the restaurant I'm going to open."

"Umm..."

Don raises a questioning eyebrow. "I'll call you next time he brings bread to the shop."

"Umm... What type of bread are you looking for?" I've got a feeling a synchronicity event is happening.

"Hot dog buns."

Boom. A memory dump of rolls and buns flash through my head. Textures, colors, fragrances and flavors push each other aside. I hear words flooding out of me as I struggle to catch up to them. Did I hear someone promise they'd make sourdough hot dog buns? What the hell do I know about hot dog buns let alone sourdough? As the babbling slows to a trickle I realize I'm about to find out.

I hit up the internet for recipes and pick one that looks doable. I run several variations through the oven and they are edible. Though no one is particularly happy with them, a question comes up. "How many buns can you make a day?"

Commercial scale cracks me up. Mixers are $1,500 and do not top out at $33,000. Proofing cabinets are $1,700 and pass $15,000. Steam injection/convection ovens are barely under ten grand and command $50,000. Add walk-in coolers, rolling racks, tables, dozens of odds and ends, and I'm out! If I had all the low end equipment given to me I'd still have to unlearn home baking methods and try to learn factory techniques. Which sounds more like work than fun.

Still, encouraged by the first attempts, I figure I need to go back to basics. I want a bun that is soft of crumb- easily compressed to hold a dog and extras, but with a nut brown crust. Flavorful, but not so chewy the dog squirts out while someone is trying to bite through the bun and stays usable for several days. Peter Reinhart (master bread builder) had a recipe for something close to that. I search an internet blog I once tended (nine years ago) and find my brief comments on Tuscan bread- "Boy am I glad we bought a decent bread knife! I don't know how I'd cut this bread else wise. The crumb is so soft! Even after sitting out all day and night the loaf was still exceptionally suited to making a sandwich." And I'm off searching through the stacks of books for "The Bread Baker's Apprentice".

To my delight the recipe is flour, water, yeast, a splash of olive oil, time and temperature. No eggs, milk, cream, sugar, diastatic malt powder, or machines to beat air into the dough. I can do this by hand. Except for the scald- boiling water mixed into flour. And therein lies the very soft crumb I suspect.

I bring my sourdough culture, Dan- it's named, up to full strength and substitute 100 grams of Dan for the commercial yeast the recipe calls for. I melt some butter to replace the olive oil and away I go working the stickiest dough I've ever played with! Not even ice cold, wet hands keep the gluey mess from sticking to me until it's had a 30 minute rest so the flour can absorb all the water. Even then the dough is tackier than I'm comfortable with.

In spite of forgetting to write down the time the dough spent on the counter or in the fridge- I end up with a boule, frog- I mean French for- a round loaf of crusty bread.

Perfect! Except everyone who sampled it said it needed salt. But they all agreed the crust was good, and the crumb very good, even after more than twelve hours sitting on the counter. So I have my basic sourdough hot dog bun recipe!

But wait. What if I fresh mill a few grams of spelt and scald that instead of bread flour? Or maybe einkorn? One of those grains gives the bread a hint of vanilla. Would vanilla pair with an all-beef hot dog and mustard? Or should I forget the hot dog and work toward a good sub roll?

Gods, is there no end to seeking? Which reminds me.

Thank you Demeter for the grains, Hephaestus for the oven and its heat, Athena for inspiring those who invented the tools and techniques I struggle to gain proficiency with. And Dionysus! whose beneficent ferments mellow the DW enough to tolerate my inane rants and raves as I stomp about in my kitchen frenzies.