Who doesn’t love a good hot dog?  Sometimes there is nothing better than a grilled hotdog on a nice summer day. I never get tired of a good hotdog and there is no better way to kick the flavor up a notch by cooking them on the grill.  A good grilled dog on a fresh bun, topped with some tangy mustard, some sweet relish and maybe a little ketchup.  Oh man, it’s no steak but it can come pretty dang close.

Although I spend my days working for The Man crunching spreadsheets, I still find a way to do some bbq research…podcasts! I was listening to one of my favs, The BBQ Central Radio Show Podcast and Greg’s guest was Craig “Meathead” Goldwyn of AmazingRibs.com and he was talking about hotdogs. That’s all it took for my hotdog craving to start.   For the next 3 days all I could think about was grilling some dogs for my Saturday lunch on the patio. As soon as I got home from work I was pulling up Craig’s site and reading through the plethora of hotdog tips.  The amount of information he can pack into his blog posts is overwhelming.  It’s going to take me 2 summers to try them all.

I started out purchasing a couple of packs of my favorite franks, the Nathans in natural casing.  Yeah, I know what natural casing is made from but I don’t care, because it’s delicious and adds a nice crunchy snap. I also picked up some fresh buns and a new jar of relish.  You can’t make a good hotdog without a good fresh bun.  I just wish I could find some of those poppy seed buns.

Oh! A blast from past, Taco Doritos!  Every 10 years or so they roll these babies out and induce snack chip flashbacks.  I remember my mom wouldn’t buy them because I would eat the whole bag.  I was a “husky” child and I guess she was trying to save me from myself.  Why is it that something as simple as a corn chip can bring back so many childhood memories? 

 One of the tricks on Craig’s site was to cross cut the ends of the dog.  Cutting the end of the dogs allows the ends to char and add more crispy crunch. This trick is awesome, you get crusty char-liciousness with the first and last bite.  The other technique I tried was laying the franks in the grate and rolled them down the grate at they cooked.  The grill marks looked a little funny running parallel to the dog but there was nothing funny about the results, more flavor and more snap.  I’m going to cook my dogs like this forever.  Let’s not forget grilling over charcoal, even though they cooked quickly like a sponge they absorbed a healthy dose of smoky flavor.

This first bite was everything I was expecting, the soft bun, the beefy smoky flavor and the all-important snap of the casing, top that off with the tangy mustard and the sweetness of the relish, it was almost heavenly.  Paired up with my retro Doritos, I felt like I was 10 years old again.  I was truly having a foodie flashback.  FYI…I didn’t eat the whole bag of Doritos.

I’m really looking forward to this summer and all the dogs I’m going to be eating.  I’m officially on a quest for some poppy seed buns and I would love to find some famous Sabrett Beef Frankfurters. If anyone in ABQ knows where to find them please let me know. This summer is going to be grate!