I Did That Spiral Hot Dog Thingy!

[livius drusus]

Bort linked to this video somewheres but I can't find where so here it is again:

Why You Should Spiral-Cut Your Wiener - CHOW Tip ...

I did it yesterday with kielbasa and it was the bomb. Getting the skewer to go all the way through straight took a few tries. Also I am not so great at cutting even spirals (at least not yet), but the system is very forgiving. When it looked like my knife was wandering over to intersect a previous cut, I just awkwardly cut away from it to ensure I didn't inadvertently sever the spiral.

The greatest thing about this method is how incredibly flexible it is to cook. You know how when you have a sausage there's always a curve to it so browning the sides and undercroft requires complex architectural planning and even so it never really gets evenly browned? Well, when your sausage is no longer a curved edge but rather a Slinky that can be positioned in a million billion ways and left there like that, browning is not only even but the easiest thing in the world. If you're making a large sausage item like a kielbasa, you don't even have to worry about securing a pan wide enough to fit the entire thing in it. Just curl into a loop or a S-shape or a figure frikking eight. It's all gold, Jerry.

Then, once the wonderfully easy and extensive browning was done, I sauteed onions and just shoved them into the spiral gaps for easy and delicious serving.

Final verdict: SUCCESS BEYOND MY WILDEST IMAGININGS.

[BrotherMan]

Suck it, Olympics. This is the best thing this week.

[Demimonde]

That brilliance was shared in the Chat Emporium, IIRC, so I am glad you posted it to the forum at large.

We finally bought a charcoal grill which we haven't even test drove. We had Home Depot Brats for lunch today, but I will have to try this tomorrow!

[livius drusus]

I can't wait to hear how it comes out on the grill. I used a cast iron skillet.

[Kael]

I am going to do that the next time I grill hotdogs or sausages, which will probably be next Saturday.

[freemonkey]

we just did this and they were great. More surface area for grill flavor. Thanks for the tip!

[Kyuss Apollo]

But will it work on sausages, mewonders?

There's only way to be certain.

[Ensign Steve]

Keeps reminding me of this potato technique.



Seasaltwithfood: Hasselback Potatoes

Wow, that is a big-ass image.

[livius drusus]

Originally Posted by Kyuss Apollo

But will it work on sausages, mewonders?

I've done it on Polish and Andouille sausages. Worked like a charm, although the cutting part is harder than with the hot dogs in the video because you have much more thickness to get through.

[BrotherMan]

Because I accidentally made a promise to livius "tyrannosaurus regina" drusus - which wasn't actually a promise but it doesn't matter because saying you might do something actually enslaves you into indentured promissitude just like a promise only worse, I did my own spiral cut hot dog thing. I wanted to do it on the Labor Day but my roommate had other plans. The joke is on him though.

I decided not to grill them because this was just the trial run, a test look and taste on the work to delicious ratio. I'll tell you what, though, grilling is most likely the most superior method to cooking this preparation of the dogs of hotness. Pan frying as livius did comes in second. My method, however, is a pale stand in. I say this because I am an honest bort. It turned out good enough but that was as much do to my accoutrements as anything else.

With that out of the way, I give you Bort's Cheap Ass Guacamole Bacon Spiral Cut Hot Dogs of Yeah It's Edibleness.

The very first step is getting all your goods together. If one looks very carefully one will immediately notice a glaring omission that should never ever happen in a just and fair world.

Because I was doing this cheaply, in a lazy-like and "efficient" manner, this is how I did my guacamole mixture. Because this is a test and I was only cooking two dogs I reduced my ingredients appropriately. Or so I thought. 1 avacado and three or four spoons of my favorite salsa was more than enough. If one were modest to conservative in their portions even this amount of dip could cover 3 to 6 buns. To my taste buds I could have added a bit more salsa for a bit of bite, but this was good enough for today's work.

You'd think this is the easiest part of the whole process but them dogs be tricky, yo. The squidginess of the dog made the skewering process annoysome. It wasn't hard, just HEY WOULD YOU GO STRAIGHT THROUGH ALREADY. As you can see, I survived the process though not with pinpoint accuracy.

Mazel tov! They were boy dogs and were treated as required by custom. As in, I did the titular treatment. AKA I spiral cut them.

And because yes, this is bort, I had to do something interesting or different just to compound the lessons learned. I added some bacon up in there.

Due to the trial nature of the process and also the taking of pictures, I was cooking super inefficiently. All y'all cooks would be ashamed. And because I'm a little about what all I did, I'm not telling you how I cooked the beans, but here's the result. Again, compounding the lessons to be learned, I thought it'd be a great idea to use the squeeze method do portion them out. Now then before you all get on with the jokes I know are coming, I have two things to say: and .

Let's check in on those spiral cut baconated dogs, shall we:

And five minutes after that picture was taken, here they is in all they glory.

Now with all the preparing and cooking and waiting out of the way, let's plate them before somebody up and steals them right out my mouth!

The observant observer might notice that bort in all his anxiousness to get to the business of getting busy forgot something else in his final preparation.

Also, to the would be jokers, I say again and .

Despite my forgetfulness, I'd give this a good B grade. A modicum of prep time nets a pretty good meal time, all said and done.

[livius drusus]

Well, um, that was one way to go. They look nicely browned in the oven. I can't tell, did the bacon come out crispy?

The important part is that you spiral cut thingied them! The impaling and cutting gets easier with practice, I'm glad to report, and you have the rest of the package to make in the pan or on the grill.

[BrotherMan]

While nicely browned, that bacon is terrible for not crisping. I'd probably have to pan fry it on high heat to get a properly crisped bacon.

[wei yau]

Wow.

I think the bacon insert was brilliant. And I love guacamole. As liv said, the dogs came out very nicely browned.

And oh look....beans.

Yeah.

[Qingdai]

I applaud you, good sirrah, for the fortitude for presenting your cooking methods to the hoi polloi, plus your very, very interesting brands of foodstuffs I've never encountered before.

SCOOPS!

[Ymir's blood]

lol @ Bort thanking being called sirrah.

[lisarea]

lol @ Ymir's blood lolling @ Bort thanking being called sirrah.

[Ymir's blood]

lol @ lisarea's lolling @ Ymir's blood lolling @ Bort thanking being called sirrah.

[Qingdai]

lol@ Ymir lolling @ lisarea lolling @ Ymir's blood lolling @ Bort.com!

Then lol @ me for not knowing the definition of sirrah, snort.

[BrotherMan]

[SharonDee]

Originally Posted by Qingdai

Then lol @ me for not knowing the definition of sirrah, snort.

Oh Em Gee, you should be reported to the Return to Gender thread!

Male denigration itt!

[erimir]

Originally Posted by lisarea

lol @ Ymir's blood lolling @ Bort thanking being called sirrah.

It took me a bit to figure out that you weren't talking about "blood lolling"

[Sock Puppet]

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that I tried the spiral cut method on some various storeboughten sausages. I was skeptical at first when I spiralled out the Italian sausage that was all goopy and loose after I cut the casings, but y'know what? It didn't matter none at all. The skewers kept them from falling completely apart, and upon grilling they reacquired solidity. They were friggin' fantastic.

Later I even tried it on some poblano 'n' cheese sausages. Even after the Italian sausage triumph, I was anxious all over again that the cheese would just dribble away. Sure, some of it did, but only the weak cheese. There was plenty of überkäse left to contribute to the deliciousness.

[livius drusus]

Hot damn, you spiral thingied raw sausage. That's balls yo. You're like Howard Roark up in this bitch. THE SAUSAGEHEAD

[specious_reasons]

Thursday is Mrs. Reason's late night, and it's up to me to cook for the rest of the family. I decided to try the spiral cut hot dogs. The new method met rousing indifference.

Actually, I thought it was mildly better, but I gave the kids the better spiral cuts.

One advantage is that the spiral cut seemed to better contain the 1/2 cup of ketchup the kids put on each dog.

[Sauron]

Originally Posted by Ensign Steve

Keeps reminding me of this potato technique.



Seasaltwithfood: Hasselback Potatoes

Wow, that is a big-ass image.

Damn, that looks good, though. With cheese in between the slices...