The Spiral-cut Smoked Hot Dog

3 Comments / Cheap Eats, Hot Dog/Brats, Pig / By

I was gifted a 24 pack of “Bar S Bun-length Franks”. Absolutely nothing fancy with these – the generic hot dog. But.. let’s spice it up a bit!

Recipe

The Prep Table

I’ll preface this with the fact I got a new phone with three cameras on the back. I’m in the process of learning the darn thing, so my pictures will get better in time!

What’s there to say about prepping hot dogs? Boil, Grill, Steam – hell, even microwave. Eat it cold, it’s a friggen hot dog. You know what you’re getting when you buy them. But let’s give them the royal treatment.

You don’t need to spend a fortune to make good food!

As stated, the dogs and onions were gifted, so I was only out the Sam’s Club purchased buns. Since I’m smoking them, I wanted to get as much smoke in there as possible. I took a dog from the pack and sliced the dog up. I held the knife at a 30ish degree angle, cut about 1/4-1/2 way through and just rotated it along. Yes, I’m aware there’s actual hot dog spiral cutters – but I’m not that big in the hot dog game. (But will I be after this?)

Wasn’t pretty, but it got the job done.

I’ll add a side story to this. I was putting together my ready rack atop my Blackstone Griddle a couple years ago and had to cut the zip ties. I used the knife pictured as it was small and could get between the snug fit between the metal and plastic.

Sliced my finger up good with that. So good the fat was trying to escape and decorated my garage floor with blood. My future wife called in the relative doctor, I disregarded the advice and I’m a better man for it (lie). No incident this time, just a sliced up dog.

No, I didn’t coat with a mustard binder. Nor will I ever.

Sliced up some onion and sprinkled a bit of Meat Church’s The Gospel BBQ Rub. I’ll tell you at this point, I was a bit concerned the slices weren’t thick enough, seasoning wouldn’t get in there, nor the smoke.. but I know cooking it up, they’ll expand and went with simple.

That’s it for preparation. I don’t go crazy with hot dogs – I don’t like ketchup or mustard on there. Relish is always sweet, so no. Raw onion though? Plenty. I still have a mason jar full of homemade BBQ sauce, so I’ll use that as a drizzle. The only other thing I enjoy is classic Detroit-style chili (See The Coney Island Hot Dog). Not today though.

The Process

Got the Recteq moving at 225 degrees (as usual) using competition-blend pellets. Threw the dogs directly on the heavily-seasoned grates and let them go.

Simple is good, but complex is fun.

I was going to cook to color, so I checked after an hour, and then threw the buns on for the last half hour. A total of 1.5hours, and it was looking pretty darn good. I rotated them after the hour for even color.

You can see the poor spiral effort on the top dog. Also the poor camera effort on my part.

Like I said earlier, the expansion really opened up on them dogs and got that smoke in there. This was exactly what I was picturing when I threw them on there. It would’ve been a good time to lace some cheese in there if you wanted, maybe a coat of sauce to glaze the dog.. but I wanted to keep it simple.

Pretty simple process. Add dog, add heat. Time to put it on a bun and go!

The Result

That color though!

Smoked up a half a dozen for a couple lunches, but wanted to put together two for dinner. Put them in a bun, covered in raw onion, and a drizzle of BBQ sauce. Not a ton, just a little bit for flavor. Plus, I wanted to actually taste the dog and not only sauce.

Pretty damn good result!

I had them again for lunch (I made these last night), and omitted the sauce because it wasn’t needed.. The Meat Church season was great on it, the spiraled dog took a good amount of smoke, and I didn’t really want anything else. The crunch of the onion is a good addition and completes the profile. I also microwaved the bun for :15 seconds, and I think I liked it better. Simple is best, I suppose!

Not the most exciting addition, but I still have 18 dogs to use before I go traveling for work – so stay tuned! Another dog post definitely coming soon. If you made it this far, you’re privy to know I’m going with poor man’s burnt ends with the next one. Thanks for reading! See you soon.

How am I supposed to categorize a hot dog? Pig? Cow? Bird? All the above? Let’s not ask anymore questions about the contents. Let’s just call it scraps.

The Recipe

The Spiral Cut Hot Dog

ForensicBBQ
Not much to add for a recipe for this one. Making the hot dog a little more flavorful and definitely a better look!
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Ingredients
  

  • 2 Hot Dogs
  • 2 Buns
  • 2-3 Tbsp Meat Church Holy Gospel Seasoning
  • 1/2 Onion Diced
  • BBQ Sauce Drizzle

Instructions
 

  • Preheat smoker to 225
  • Slice hot dogs at an angle for the entire length. Sprinkle with seasoning – You can try to get it in the cut, good luck – It's a pain
  • Throw on the grates for about an hour, add the buns for the last half hour to soften 'em up.
  • Add dog to bun, top with onions and drizzle some BBQ sauce on top.

3 thoughts on “The Spiral-cut Smoked Hot Dog”

  1. Dennis

    Frankly, that looks amazing! Who’d have thought?
    I believe I will try that very soon.
    Also, no knives for zip ties, watching the e.r. Doc see up my arm cured me of that. Diagonal cutters work the best.

  3. Pingback: Hot Dog Burnt Ends – ForensicBBQ: Swinery and Binary

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