Gourmet Hot Dogs the Hebrew National Way

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If you know us at all, you know we don’t do anything the plain and boring way. When we cook around here, it’s a challenge to see how over-the-top we can do things. Having a chef-to-be in the family (by daughter, Temera) means that every meal has to be a gourmet meal. That’s okay… it keeps us from the same boring food all the time. Seriously, even our hot dogs have to be gourmet.

We grill as often as we can and since we live in Southern California, it’s a year-round thing for us. Amanda has decided that she wants my husband to teach her everything about grilling so she can step up as Grill Master if he’s not home. She’s been bugging us for hot dogs for the last few weeks and since weekends are the perfect time to grill, I got together with Temera to figure out how we could take your typical hot dog and jazz it up a bit.

I don’t know if everyone has their favorite brand of hot dog, but we ONLY buy Hebrew National ones. It started when we were growing up and both my husband and I come from families that kept Kosher. Once we moved out on our own, we didn’t keep Kosher ourselves, but the habit of only buying Hebrew National kind of stuck. Seriously… they aren’t known as the hot dog you can trust for no reason.

We picked up our hot dogs at Ralphs, the only store near us that carries the entire line of Hebrew National hot dogs. You can get everything from the bun sized ones I bought to reduced-fat and knockwarst. The bun length are the best because I hate running out of hot dog when there is still bun left.

So, David is going to man the grill while I get the hot dog toppings ready. I thought I would give you 3 different ideas and you can pick the one you like the best.

Homemade Potato Chips

First up, we are big potato chip fans and what goes better with anything grilled than chips? I had these small yellow potatoes in the fridge and thought it would be easy to make my own potato chips. It was easy. If you have a mandolin at home, use that to slice the potatoes really thin. You can cut them as well, but they might be slightly thicker… unless you can slice potatoes super thin. I can’t, so I used the combo grater/mandolin I had. Mine had ridges which ended up looking really fabulous on the potato chips.

I heated vegetable oil in a large skillet and once it was hot (drop some water in the oil and if it pops, it’s ready for the potatoes) I evenly spaced out the sliced potatoes.

It took about 10 minutes for them to really get crispy. I flipped them over once mid-way through.

Drain on a paper towel and put aside until grill time.

MEDITERRANEAN SALAD

I love Mediterranean salad and it’s so easy and fast to make. It’s perfect on it’s own AND on hamburgers and hot dogs.

I chopped the cucumber (with skin off), tomato and yellow pepper into small pieces. You can use any kind of pepper, but I used an orange one because I wanted to be extra colorful. When you are preparing food, it always looks more appetizing when the colors are exciting. Add a little salt to taste and you’re good to go. I don’t add any other dressing or oil into this because you’ll probably want to add your own ketchup and/or mustard to your hot dog.

Fried Onions with Pickles

I love relish and onions on my hot dogs. Never liked them as a kid, but now that my tastes have matured a little (well, sort of), I wanted to try something a little more upscale than opening a jar of ready-made relish. I grilled some onions, because there is nothing more amazing than the smell of grilled onions wafting through the house, and chopped up some dill pickles. I didn’t cook the pickles, just mixed them with the onions. So so so good. This is my new favorite thing to have on hot dogs and it takes minutes to make.

Now that I have my prep done, it’s time to grill

This is really the first time we’ve used our deck this summer. We recently purchased a new dining table and I just bought some chairs this weekend. I still need to get an outdoor rug and we want to string up some lights around the umbrella. The kids love eating outdoors and it does make for a fun, relaxing meal.

Dinner was great and everyone thought the toppings were amazing. We’ll definitely be doing this again.

If you haven’t tried Hebrew National hot dogs, give them a try. They use only premium cuts of 100% kosher beef from the front half of the cow and then choose the best from that. There are no artificial flavors, colors, fillers or by-products. When your hot dog is Kosher, that’s a hot dog you can trust! For more summer fun with Hebrew National, visit their Facebook page.

SUMMER DEAL: Save up to $2.00 on Hebrew National all-beef franks.

What’s your favorite hot dog topping?

The combination of franks and these toppings may not be Kosher.