Recipe: Chef Kevin Gillespie’s Chili Slaw Dawgs
When my mom was pregnant with me, she craved hot dogs from The Varsity, a fast-food institution in Atlanta. She ate Varsity dogs for nine months straight. My aunt Pat even brought her a Varsity dog at the hospital right after I was born. Those chili dogs are in my blood. As I grew older, my love of eating them also grew, but my stomach's tolerance for chili dogs didn't quite keep pace. My goal: to make a chili dog that wouldn't send you to the thunder bucket for hours. First, you need great chili that sits well on a hot dog. You see, meat wants to clump up in big pieces when it cooks, but that's not what you want in a chili dog. You want a fine texture. So I came up with this method of cooking the raw meat, water, and onions together to keep the meat from clumping up. Second, the hot dog has to be skinny, preferably with a natural casing. I like to cook the dogs on a smokin' hot griddle so they get that awesome snap, which is on my list of all-time incredibly good things in food. Finally, you need a soft, top-loading bun that's cut down the center-not the side. That's absolutely imperative. For the slaw, use the tender inner green leaves from a head of cabbage. Pull off the dark outer leaves and reserve those for another use, like cabbage dumplings. - Kevin Gillespie
Chili Slaw Dawgs
Makes 8
Ingredients
8 of your favorite brand hot dogs (I like the long, skinny Sabrett- style dogs)
8 top-loading hot dog buns
1 teaspoon canola oil
4 cups yellow mustard
1/2 cup finely diced Vidalia onion
2 cups slaw (recipe follows)
Hot dog chili (recipe follows)
Preparation
Heat a 10-inch cast-iron skillet over high heat and wipe the pan with a paper towel dipped in the canola oil. You only want enough oil to shine up the skillet. When the pan is smokin' hot, pat the dogs dry and add them to the pan. Cut the heat down to medium and cook just until the dogs are lightly charred, about 4 minutes per side. Slice the buns lengthwise through the top (if not already sliced for top loading). Slip in the dogs, spoon a generous amount of chili onto each dog, and squeeze a generous amount of mustard down the length of the chili. Top with about 1/4 cup slaw, then garnish with a thick layer of onions. The order of ingredients matters: You want to enclose the mustard in the chili and slaw so it's almost a surprise within the bite.
Hot Dog Chili
Makes about 4 cups
Ingredients
1 pound grass-fed ground beef (85% lean)
1 baseball-size Vidalia onion cut into 1/4-inch dice (about 2 cups)
1 cup water
5 cloves garlic, peeled and sliced really thin, about 1/4 cup
3 tablespoons tomato paste
3 tablespoons New Mexico pure red chile powder
1 tablespoon salt
1 cup beer
Preparation
In a heavy saucepan, combine the beef, onion, water, garlic, tomato paste, chile powder, and salt and stir. The mixture will be thick and pasty. Cook over medium-high heat until most of the liquid evaporates, about 10 minutes. Add the beer and return the chili to a simmer. Cut the heat down to medium-low and simmer for another 20 minutes. Pull the pan from the heat and let the chili cool in the pan. This is a weird technique because there is no caramelization or browning of the meat, but it achieves the perfect texture and consistency for hot dog chili with no big chunks of meat.
Slaw
Makes about 2 cups
Ingredients
1/2 small head green cabbage, dark outer leaves removed, about 1 pound
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
Preparation
Cut the cabbage into coarse chunks and drop into a food processor fitted with the metal blade. Give it about 20 quick pulses; you want a very fine chop, but be careful that you don't end up with mush. You should have a little more than 2 1/2 cups chopped cabbage. Scrape the cabbage into a bowl and mix in the sugar and salt. Press and pack the mixture down to compact it, then cover and refrigerate for about 1 hour so the sugar and salt dissolve and start to draw the liquid out of the cabbage. Press the mixture through a fine-mesh strainer and discard the liquid. Stir the mayonnaise into the cabbage until combined.