Chicago-style hot dog

What makes a hot dog, a Chicago-style hot dog? Typically the presence of poppy seed buns, celery salt, sweet relish, pickles and mustard, but this Chicago-style hot dog comes with an Indigenous Australian twist by adding green ants to the mustard. Indigenous Australian communities have used green ants as a culinary and medicinal traditional food for many years as a remedy for coughs and colds. They are greatly prized for their strong, lemony flavour.

Credit: Jiwon Kim

• serves

  4

• prep

  10 minutes

• cook

  10 minutes

• difficulty

  Mid

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Ingredients

• 2 small tomatoes
• Murray river salt and mountain pepper, to season
• Extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling
• 30 g butter, divided
• 4 poppy seed hot dog buns, halved
• 4 all-beef hot dogs
• 4 tbsp sweet pickle relish
• 1 small white onion, finely chopped
• 4 good-quality dill pickle spears, sliced
• 4-6 sport peppers or pickled chilli peppers (like fefferoni)
• celery salt and green ants, to season

For the green ant yellow mustard (see Note)

• 20 g green ants
• salt
• 150 g yellow mustard

Instructions

1. To make the green ant mustard, place the green ants into a mortar and pestle and grind with a small pinch of salt to a fine powder. In a small bowl, combine the green ant powder with the mustard and mix well to combine.
   
2. Halve the tomatoes, then cut into 1 cm slices. Place onto a clean working board and lightly sprinkle each slice with a pinch of salt and mountain pepper. Lightly drizzle the seasoned tomatoes with olive oil.
   
3. Melt two-thirds of the butter in a large frying pan, then add the hot dog buns, cut-side down. Toast for 1-3 minutes, or until golden and crisp, then remove to a plate.
   
4. Return the pan to medium-high heat with the remaining butter, then add the hot dogs and cook, turning occasionally, until browned and crispy.
   
5. To serve, spread the toasted hot dog buns with green ant mustard and top with the hot dogs. Spoon over the sweet pickle relish, sprinkle with white onion and layer sliced tomato and pickles on top. Garnish with a pinch of celery salt, extra green ants and serve.

Photography by Jiwon Kim.

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Cook's Notes

Oven temperatures are for conventional; if using fan-forced (convection), reduce the temperature by 20˚C. | We use Australian tablespoons and cups: 1 teaspoon equals 5 ml; 1 tablespoon equals 20 ml; 1 cup equals 250 ml. | All herbs are fresh (unless specified) and cups are lightly packed. | All vegetables are medium size and peeled, unless specified. | All eggs are 55-60 g, unless specified.

Stream free On Demand

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Watch The Full Episode Here

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Watch The Full Episode Here

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