Chicago style hotdogs…. A couple years ago my wife and I took a weeklong trip to Chicago for a friend’s wedding. Â While there we made sure to try all of the “Chicago things”. Â We went downtown, we went to the lake, and saw all that we could in the course of a week. Â Of course, we had to try the famous Chicago foods. Â We had Chicago style pizza after their rehearsal dinner and of course had to try the famous Chicago Style Hotdogs while we were there too. Â For this we were treated to Portillo’s. Â Portillo’s started as a hot dog cart in the 60s and has been making Chicago Dogs ever since.
Traditionally, Chicago Dogs are a Vienna all beef hot dog served on a poppyseed bun with yellow mustard, chopped onion, a dill pickle spear, tomato slices, sport peppers and bright green relish. Â I cannot, for the life of me, find poppyseed buns or sport peppers in my area. Therefor, my dogs are missing those items.
For this recipe, I tried making my own homemade relish and used a bit of green food coloring to give it the bright green color. Â This worked, but didn’t look quite right. Â I also like to add beef bouillon cubes to my water and steam my hotdogs. Â I toasted the bun before steaming it for a few seconds and then piled the toppings on.
This will be a recipe that I will update from time to time as I continue my search for the elusive poppyseed buns and sport peppers. Â My Chicago friends would probably tell me 100 ways that this is wrong, but I will keep working on it.
Chicago Style Hotdogs
Equipment
- Medium sauce pan
- Steamer
- Strainer
- Medium bowl
Ingredients
Homemade Lime Green Relish
- 1 cucumbers
- 1/2 onion
- 1/2 cups white vinegar
- 1/4 cups sugar
- 3 drops green food coloring
Hotdogs
- 5 hotdogs
- 5 hotdog buns
- 2 pickles slices
- 1/2 onions sliced
- 3 cherry tomatoes sliced
- 1/4 cups yellow mustard
- 3 beef bouillon cubes
Instructions
Homemade Relish
- Chop cucumber
- Chop onion
- Put chopped cucumber and onion in a strainer over a bowl
- Let drain for 2 hours
- Using a wooden spoon push as much remaining liquid out as possible
- Bring vinegar and sugar to a boil
- Add cucumbers and onion to boiling vinegar
- Add a couple drops of green food coloring
- Reduce over a medium low heat until most of the liquid is gone
- Remove from heat and cool in refrigerator
Hotdogs
- Bring water in a steamer to a boil
- Add beef bouillon cubes to boiling water
- Steam hotdogs until done
- Put hotdog buns in steamer for 20 seconds
- Put hotdog on steamed bun
- Add yellow mustard
- Add pickles
- Add relish
- Add onion
- Add tomato