Chinese Bakery Style Hot Dog Buns

I love hot dogs. I wish I didn't, but I do. My favorite kind are the ones sold in an outdoor setting, whether it be a sporting event or a street cart vendor in D.C. or New York. The polish sausage at Costco is good too. Sanitation and health issues aside (after all, if you're eating a hot dog, you're eating it for the pleasure of eating it and nothing else), it's a wonderful treat. I like my hot dogs grilled, and prepared two ways: served in a fresh bun with regular yellow mustard, ketchup, and sauerkraut and/or diced onion; or with chili and cheese. The first way is sour and mouth puckering, while the second way is hearty and rich. The one thing I will not eat on a hot dog is relish. I'm just not a relish girl.



One of my favorite snacks growing up was hot dog buns from Chinese bakeries. That might sound a little strange -- what's so good about a plain bun? Ah, but a "hot dog bun" in a Chinese bakery isn't just a long, cushiony hammock for a sausage, as you might buy in packs of 8 from a grocery store. No, these come with the hot dogs in them, neatly wrapped inside a soft, sweet bread. They're really handy as snacks or a quick meal on the go.



I recently read a couple of posts where people have made their own Chinese bakery-style hot dog buns, and being that it's now warmer and I love working with dough, I had to try it out for myself. I wasn't sure how my first results would turn out, so I lazily did not capture a lot of the in-process dough formation on camera, but next time I definitely will. I tried out two shapes, one that required a bit of braiding, and another in which you looped the dough around the hot dog. For the latter, I find that the shape comes out better when the loops aren't rolled super thin, so that they touch each other even before the rise (a tip for myself for next time). In this batch, I used some shredded cheese in the braided version -- next time I'll use more cheese, as you can barely tell it's there.



The recipe for this dough isn't quite as sweet as what I'm used to getting in Chinese bakeries, so I'll play with the amount of sugar next time. I don't like to adjust first-time recipes too much.

Chinese Bakery Style Hot Dog Buns (recipe adapted from here)

Ingredients

• 300g bread flour
• 1 package active dry yeast (about 7.4g)
• 10g sugar
• 6g salt
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten and divided
• 170g milk, at about 90°F (egg + milk should equal about 220g)
• 30g unsalted butter, softened
• 8 hot dogs
• sesame seeds

Method

1. In a stand mixer bowl, stir together the flour, yeast, sugar and salt. Add in 1 of the lightly beaten eggs and the milk, stirring until it starts to come together. Attach the bowl to the stand mixer.
2. Using the dough hook attachment, knead on medium-low speed (#4 on my KitchenAid) for 5 minutes. Add the softened butter and knead another 3 minutes or until the butter has been completely and thoroughly absorbed into the dough. The dough should feel smooth, satiny, and not sticky. If it's sticky, add more flour in tablespoon increments until you reach the right texture. The dough should pass the windowpane test (you can stretch it out very thinly without it breaking). Knead until it does.
3. Spray a good size bowl with cooking spray. Take the dough out of the mixing bowl and form into a ball, pulling the sides down so that it becomes taut. Place the ball of dough in the greased bowl, cover it, and let it rise in a warm area for about 90 minutes, until about doubled in size.
4. Take the dough out of the bowl and divide into 8 equal pieces, about 72g each (deflating the dough is fine).
5. To form the braided rolls, roll out one of the pieces into a rectangle, with the longer side about the length of your hot dogs. Slash both sides of the rectangle into about 7 strips, without actually cutting through to the other side. Spread shredded cheese down the center if you wish, then place the hot dog on top. To seal, fold the strips down in an alternating pattern. (See detailed instructions here.)
   
   To form the poofy rolls, roll out one of the dough pieces between your hands until it's about 2 to 2 1/2 times the length of the hot dog. If you want the center to be bigger than the ends, make sure you roll your dough accordingly, so that the middle of your long piece of dough is bulkier than the ends. Wrap the length of dough around a hot dog; it should be enough to make 3 loops, with the tapered ends at the bottom of the hot dog. (See detailed instructions here.)
6. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Place the shaped buns on the paper, leaving enough room in between each for the dough to have a place to go while it's rising.
7. Cover the buns loosely with plastic wrap or a clean cloth (you don't want to ruin the rise by having to peel anything off them). Let the dough rise again for another 90 minutes or so, until it's about doubled in volume and look nicely plump.
8. Meanwhile, preheat your oven to 400°F.
9. When the buns have risen, gently brush egg wash (the remaining egg) generously onto each, making sure to get the sides as well, and sprinkle sesame seeds on top, if desired.
10. Bake in the preheated oven for 8 minutes. Lower the temperature to 350°F and bake for another 5-8 minutes, until the buns are an attractive golden brown.

The Maligned Corn Dog

I generally try to be somewhat health conscious when I prepare meals for myself, even if half the time I'm just rationalizing why it's okay to see this or that (when I know perfectly well that I shouldn't eat it). I try to have a balanced meal that's nutritious and low-calorie, yet filling. Balance isn't usually that difficult; keeping the calories down is usually my bane.

But then there are times when I throw all that out the window. When even I can't rationalize why I should consume something. There simply is no justification for what I'm eating, except that I want to eat it.

In fact, such is the case almost any time I read one of Homesick Texan's blog posts, because she unashamedly writes, makes, and eats, foods that I absolutely love -- but cannot consider anything but unhealthy. Now, that's not always the case; I've learned a lot about misperceptions (such as about lard). But many times, I read a recipe in her blog and immediately want to make it, regardless of how healthy it may or may not be.



Such was the case today. I made corn dogs. (She calls them corny dogs, but I'm not from the south and can't pretend to be; I've known them as corn dogs all my life and so they will remain.) Corn dogs also held another appeal: I don't normally like them. So just as with mayonnaise, I had to try making them myself to see if it made a difference to my palate -- would it be better? Would I actually like homemade corn dogs, or would they be just as distasteful as the ones I've had just about everywhere else?

Granted, most of my corn dog experience comes from food court experiences -- you know, Hot Dog on a Stick -- and the occasional fair, and maybe a frozen version once or twice. With possibly one exception (and I don't even know where I had it now), they've always been rather disgusting to me. I like the thick, crispy outside part, but if it's too thick it gets really soggy/dry/cakey, which I don't like. And then there's the hot dog itself. I love hot dogs. Costco hot dogs might possibly be one of the best and cheapest treats anywhere ($1.50 for a dog and a soda!). I love making them at home. I eat them with just about every condiment except relish. Sometimes heaven on earth can be contained in a chili cheese dog that oozes chili when you take bites of it. So yeah, I'm no hot dog snob. But hot dogs that have been encased in that cornbread coating inevitably tastes weird to me, in a bad way. There's a strange aftertaste that I can't even really describe; all I know is that it's yucky, and I don't like it. And thus, I don't like corn dogs.

Jade postulated that maybe it was because I don't like the combination of sweet and savory when it comes to meat, which is true. I generally don't like sweet meat, where the sweetness overpowers the savory aspect (and I really don't like sweet and sour meat). Perhaps the cornbread part in combination with the meat ruined it for me.



So I was curious about making my own. I don't know what usually goes into the batter for the cornbread coating for corn dogs, whether or not there's actually sugar, but HT's recipe didn't call for any (according to her, true southern cornbread isn't sweet!). So would that make a difference? Would it make a difference if they were made from all-beef hot dogs that I had purchased myself (and usually like, when I make them plain on their own)? Would it make a difference if I baked them in my toaster oven -- my usual method for making hot dogs -- before I made them into corn dogs?

I experimented. I made two corn dogs as directed in HT's recipe, and made two of them after baking them for 10 minutes in my toaster oven on 350°F. The result was subtle, but there. The pre-cooked hot dog tasted better to me, and was warmer when eating (I like my food hot). The hot dog that I didn't pre-cook still tasted better as a corn dog than the corn dogs I've had elsewhere. The experiment was a success: It's not that I don't like corn dogs; it's that I don't like them unless they're homemade. Whether or not it helped that the batter didn't have sugar I don't know; it certainly didn't hurt.



Instead of using sticks made for candied apples as HT did (I couldn't find any, and I didn't feel like trekking all the way to a specialty store for them as I don't plan to make corn dogs very often), or wooden skewers, which would have been too long anyway (and unfortunately pointy on both ends), or my nice chopsticks, I ended up using extra take-away chopsticks that I had lying around. They were still a bit too long for my purpose, but better than my alternatives. I first sanded them down to get rid of splinters by rubbing two together vigorously for about 30 seconds (scraping one chopstick against the other, then alternating). The cooked hot dogs were a lot easier to skewer than the ones right out of the package, but that also meant that if I was slightly off on my centering, it was less easy to pull back and readjust.

I've reproduced HT's recipe for corn dogs below, with a couple of adjustments (she basically just copies her recipe for cornbread, but accidentally leaves in 2 tbsp of bacon drippings by mistake -- it would normally go toward greasing one's cast-iron pan).



Homesick Texan's Corn Dogs - adapted

Ingredients

• 2 cups of yellow or white cornmeal
• 1/2 cup of flour plus more for dusting the hot dogs
• 1 heaping tsp baking powder
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 egg, slightly beaten
• 2 cups of buttermilk
• a package of hot dogs (around 8)
• thin sticks with pointy ends
• 1 quart of peanut oil

Method

1. Depending on how many you're making, heat an oven or toaster oven to 350°F and line a tray with foil. Line up hot dogs on the foil so that they don't touch. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until the skins have split. (I usually just stick them in when the oven is preheating, and then bake for required time when the oven is ready.)
2. Mix the cornmeal, 1/2 cup of the flour, baking powder and salt.
3. Beat the egg into the buttermilk and add mixture to dry ingredients.
4. Pour the batter into a tall glass or quart-sized Mason jar.
5. Heat peanut oil in a large pot or Dutch oven until it gets to 365°F. Or if you have one, use a deep fryer.
6. Remove the hot dogs from the oven and carefully skewer the hot dogs until you've still got enough stick to serve as a handle. If you use disposable chopsticks, you may need to skewer them to the end, as the chopsticks are rather long.
7. Put a couple of heaping tablespoons of flour on a flat plate and roll the hot dog in it until it's coated.
8. Dip the hot dog into the batter, pulling out carefully so that you have a good thick coating of batter, then add it to the oil.
9. Cook for three minutes, turning occasionally (if you're using a deep fryer, you can skip the turning). Drain on paper towels. Serve immediately.

HT also suggests altering the batter to your taste, adding chili peppers, etc. She also says that rolling the hot dogs in the flour helps the batter stick to them, but I'm not convinced of this. When I made them it seemed to do the opposite: the flour seemed to make the batter slide off more easily. I'll have to try again and see what works better.

The recipe calls for about 8 hot dogs, but honestly there's so much batter that you could probably make 3 times that many. And unless you've made a lot of corn dogs, you'll have batter left over. Use that to bake some corn bread, or add an egg, a jalapeno, and some extra cornmeal/flour, and make hush puppies!

I only had white cornmeal on hand, and other than the batter being white instead of yellow, you couldn't really tell in the final results -- especially in terms of taste, which is the important part!