Hot Dogs and Hamburgers

It's been a long Week of Hot Dogs and Hamburgers. We started off on the high end with the first really hot saturday of the summer. Invited some good friends over for a pool party. I bought some jumbo all beef kosher dogs and made up some hamburger patties.

Hamburger Patties
Worscesteshire sauce
Dried onion flakes
Salt + Pepper
Garlic
Olive oil
Salsa water* (see grilled salsa)

I tried to have a variety of toppings to create a variety of Dogs and Hamburgers.
We had a

modified Chicago Dog; tomato slices, pickles, mustard, I forgot the banana peppers so I substituted some roasted poblano peppers.
Chili Dogs; Chopped onions and grated cheese and of course

Hot Dog Chili
One sweet italian sausage out of casing
3/4lb ground beef
1/2 a small can of tomato paste
1/2 cup of chopped onion
1/2 cup of minced carrot
3 cloves of garlic
heaping tablespoon of chili powder
your choice of heat to taste
1 bottle of beer (I prefer dark)
tsp mustard powder (optional)
Brown the sausage and ground beef in pan, when brown remove from pan and drain most of fat. Add onions, carrots and garlic to pan saute till onions translucent then add tomato paste cook stirrin frequently till tomato past just begins to stick to the bottom of the pan. Return meat to the pan and stir in. Bring heat up a bit and add 1/2 to 3/4 of the beer depending on how thick you like your chili. Add the mustard powder here if you like. Reduce to low and keep warm.

I also Roasted salsa which is really a variation of what Bobby Flay makes in his book

Roasted Salsa
Tomato
Tomatillo
onions
Garlic
Bell pepper
Poblano pepper
(actually any pepper you like)
I sometimes add Celery or green onion as well)
Fresh Cilantro
Fresh Parsley

Seasoning
Salt, pepper, cumin, chili powder, olive oil, juice of 3-4 limes, sherry vinegar, sugar

I put everything on the grill except the cilantro and parsley on the grill and grill till they are good and charred. I then place them in a large non reactive bowl and let them cool on the counter or fridge. They let off quite a bit of liquid which can be used in the burgers above or saved for stock.
Once everything cools I put it in the food processor with the cilantro and parsley a bit at a time and pulse to whatever consistency I am in the mood for.
Season to taste, in my experience it needs quite a bit of salt and more lime juice and olive oil than I initially think.

The gig went very well with high praise for the modified Chicago Dog. We had a lot of leftover meats and toppings so we repeated the get together with some neighbors the next day. We had more and wilder kids the second time around, but just as much fun.

Well, what I didn't plan on very well is that I then left to volunteer at our local Muscular Dystrophy Association camp, and guess what... Hamburgers and Hotdogs pretty much twice a day (the welcome pulled pork sandwich and fried chicken interlude), all punctuated with baked beans for lunch and dinner. But that's another post.