I shouldn’t be left unattended in the kitchen.
One thing that struck me about finding the French fry coated hot dog on a stick in South Korea was that they were doing it wrong, the sort of cultural misunderstanding that happens when one culture cooks the food of an unrelated and unattached culture and then impales said food on a wooden stick.
Firstly, the hot dog on a stick wasn’t coated in real American fries but chunks of potato and secondly, the hot dog batter was wheat flour rather than a more American corn dog batter. If Americans had have first cooked this one handed food, it would probably be a very different but equally deadly beast. So I set about cooking myself an American-style French fry coated hotdog.
I cooked the French fries from scratch which is entirely un-American: feel free to use the frozen variety.
Ingredients:
One hotdog
One large russet burbank potato
Plenty of oil for deep frying
For the batter:
100gms of plain flour
75gms of cornmeal
1 egg
2 teaspoons of sugar
half a cup of milk
Method:
Find yourself a russet burbank potato, about the length of a hotdog.
Peel the potato then slice into french fries in a mandolin slicer (or do it by hand). Set aside.
Mix together the dry batter ingredients, add the egg and the milk. Mix to a thick paste, adding more milk if it is too dry: you’re aiming at the batter being thick and sticky rather than runny like a real corn dog batter, slightly more viscous than a dough. Set aside.
Fry the french fries in oil until golden. Remove from the oil onto a paper towel.
Coat the hotdog in the batter, then glue the french fries to the dog as best you can. Drop this monstrosity back into the boiling oil and fry until the french fries begin to brown.
Le Pogo et frites
Remove from the oil and poke a stick into it. Call your cardiologist to make preliminary enquiries about heart surgery. Enjoy.
And then with the leftovers, I cooked French fry coated bacon.
April 14, 2008 12:46 pm
I think you might have too much time on your hands these days.
April 14, 2008 1:05 pm
It’s a whole lot less time-consuming to cook these things in your own home than find them in the wild, which is quite a terrible realisation for me. And plus, I rarely cook like a jackass in the kitchen. I’ve been too serious lately, with the charcuterie and the sausages et al.
Originally, the french fry coated bacon was going to be my throwdown for RealThai Austin in a competition where we challenged each other to come up with the worst idea for food: but we’ve both been too busy to battle.
April 14, 2008 5:07 pm
heh interesting… loved how you made your own fries from scratch!
April 14, 2008 10:07 pm
he he he he he he he…I LOL(ed)
good stuff
bring on the moral decline
April 15, 2008 6:43 am
Hmmm, the french fry coated hotdog looks better to me than the bacon, which looked kinda chewy… My question is how did it taste? It looks delicious to me!
April 16, 2008 7:48 am
flabbergasting!!!
and yet, I want a bite! where’s the ketchup?
April 17, 2008 3:16 am
If it’s coated in Nutella it could be the ultimate European breakfast treat!
April 18, 2008 9:21 pm
You need to move to the American South. You would make a killing at state and county fairs with both the bacon and the hotdog recipe. We also do a version of fried snickers bars, oreo cookies, and twinkies. Oh and dill pickles. Just with breading though, not the fries. I think if you added the fries, you’d have a real winner. I swear you’d be a millionaire.
April 18, 2008 9:26 pm
I might make a killing, but I couldn’t live with the untold number of deaths that I’d cause.
April 19, 2008 10:26 pm
Southerners have always eaten like they desire nothing more than a coronary. Your conscience would be clean.
April 21, 2008 5:20 am
you may have a bit too much time on your hands…
but i’m not complaining!
July 6, 2008 12:45 pm
ALL I WANTED WAS AN OLD FASHIONED BATTER RECIPE INSTEAD OF SOMETHING THAT IS GOING TO KILL ME./
THANK,YOU
TENACITY
July 30, 2008 7:39 am
Your version looks great – and corn-based batter is a much better idea – but I don’t know why you didn’t like the idea of their using “chunks of potato”. I myself immediately thought that the S. Korean version would be improved by using tater tots ….
Thanks for the “how to” instructions + photos!
August 24, 2008 12:21 am
You, Sir, are a genius !!!
Yum !
October 24, 2008 10:08 am
i love you. really, i do.
November 6, 2008 5:13 pm
AH HA! I had to try this immediately after seeing this recipe and also after eating on in Korea last winter. And I did indeed use tater tots instead because that’s all I had. BOMB.
November 13, 2008 2:14 am
Interesting…so all they need to do is dip it in chilli and cheese. Guess now US doesn’t have the corner on heart clogging foods….heart attack on a stick
January 20, 2009 9:42 am
Oh – I SO have to make one of these!
January 20, 2009 9:02 pm
i like the weight loss add.
January 20, 2009 9:22 pm
So beautiful, so very, very beautiful…
February 11, 2009 10:13 am
They weren’t doing it wrong. They were just making their version of it. I am sure that there were no misunderstandings. Many Asian countries now eat Western influenced meal. While fries were originated in Belgium or possibly France, what you eat in America is adapted version of European fries. Maybe what you had in S. Korea didn’t suit your palette. It looks tasty by the way :)
March 3, 2009 2:24 am
Hi, the best of the best.