American · Main Course
Hot Dog
A beef frankfurter, split and browned, in a steamed bun with onion and relish.
CC BY 2.0. Cropped and colour-adjusted for this site.
Method
Score the 1 frankfurter (57 g) lightly along one side and cook it in a dry pan over a medium heat for 6m, turning often, until the casing is browned and blistered on all sides.
Common pitfallA frankfurter left whole and unscored splits its casing unevenly over direct heat. A shallow scoring cut first lets it colour without bursting open.
Meanwhile, split the 1 bun (43 g) without cutting all the way through and warm it over the same pan or in a low oven for 2m, until soft and heated through.
Set the frankfurter into the bun and top with the 20 g white onion, the 15 g sweet relish and, if using, the 15 g tomato ketchup.
The sausage predates the sandwich by centuries and its birthplace is itself disputed between two German-speaking cities: Frankfurt, which gives the frankfurter its name, and Vienna, source of the alternative name wiener [2]. German immigrants brought it to New York in the mid-nineteenth century, where street vendors sold it as a "dachshund sausage" [1].
Its American identity was made at Coney Island. Charles Feltman is widely credited with putting the sausage in a milk roll and selling it from a Coney Island stand from the 1870s, and the format spread from there [1]. The best-known rival stand exists because of a defection rather than an independent invention: Nathan Handwerker, once one of Feltman's own employees, opened Nathan's Famous nearby in 1916, and the two stands' competing claims to the original Coney Island hot dog have never really been settled [1].
What travelled out from Coney Island split into regional dressings rather than a single standard: mustard and onion in New York, chili in the Midwest, a version wrapped in a sweeter bun and known by the Coney name itself in Michigan, and each region treats its own version as the correct one. The frankfurter and the bun are the constant; everything on top of them is a local argument.
Sources
- The Origin of the Coney Island Hot Dog Is a Uniquely American Story, Smithsonian MagazineOn Charles Feltman's Coney Island stand and Nathan Handwerker's rival stand founded by a former employee.
- Searching History For The Hot Dog's Origin, NPROn the competing claims from Frankfurt and Vienna behind the sausage itself.