Let’s Be Frank - elda eats

“Some people wanted champagne and caviar when they should have had beer and hot dogs.” ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

Well, I guess the late President Eisenhower and I would have gotten along just fine!

No offense to the champagne and caviar crowd (I hang out with them sometimes), but hey, who doesn’t love beer and hot dogs?

I certainly love a good hot dog, so I was definitely game for this next recipe in the Cook the 40 Challenge: Kogi Dogs by Roy Choi.

Photo of the magazine cover. — Best-ever recipes? Challenge accepted!

Cook the 40

Why take on Food & Wine’s best-ever recipes from their forty years in publication? Because if you’ve been paying attention, you know that’s one of the things I’m doing this year!

Besides, I’m hoping that taking on these 40 recipes will also add some fun and new favorite foods to my life. If even half of them end up being tasty, this will be a worthwhile endeavor.

40 Years of Food & Wine

According to the September 2018 anniversary issue of Food & Wine, and editor Hunter Lewis, https://twitter.com/notesfromacook?lang=en, what makes a good recipe is it being delicious, of course, and (I think even more important sometimes) the best recipes “tell a story worth repeating.” Well said, Hunter.

I am not sure what kind of stories these 40 best-ever recipes will tell from my kitchen’s point of view, but I am excited to find out.

Oh, and a bonus? I get to taste these new recipes! Winning.

Kogi Dog Recipe Page — A recipe for hot dogs? Let’s be frank, who would have thought you’d need a recipe for hot dogs…

The Ninth Recipe

Kogi dogs? What are they? According to the magazine, they are a genius food from Roy Choi, whose Culinary Institute of America pedigree has contributed to the success of his famous food truck in California. Along with other truck favorites like Korean short rib tacos, the dogs, smoky and “piled high with cabbage, kimchi, and cheddar, became a cult favorite.”

But, let’s be frank. Does one really need a recipe for a hot dog? And, could said recipe truly be the best the magazine published in 2009?

We’re about to find out…

A little prep for the frankfurters…
Before this, I had only eaten kimchi a few times, and I had never bought it before.

Let’s Get Cooking

You might imagine that this recipe isn’t too complicated, and you’d be right because it’s not.

It’s simple when it comes to putting everything together, but pretty creative in its ingredients and thinking that they’d all work well on a hot dog.

My best advice to making these Kogi Dogs? Use really good quality hot dogs and really good hot dog buns. Also, make sure your grill is nice and hot and put a good char on the dogs, and some nice toasted texture on the inside of the buns. The nice warm bun and dog along with the crisp, fresh and spicy toppings really work well together.

Wow! These dogs were quite frankly some of the best dogs I’ve ever made, and eaten. Another winner, Food & Wine Magazine. Of course.

Be careful when opening a jar of kimchi! This stuff was spicy and tasty.
The recipe called for toasted sesame seeds.

So, this Kogi Dog is the real deal. The combo of all of Chef Choi’s ingredients made for a great meal. He knows what he’s doing.

Where Was I When This Recipe Was Published in 2009?

As Food & Wine was publishing Roy Choi’s recipe in 2009, I was living in our newly built house in New Braunfels, Texas. Because we had just built our house, and were still busy getting settled, we didn’t travel too much, but we did make a trip to Florida that year.

My dad’s Army unit had a reunion in Orlando, and since family are always invited, and Peter and I had not visited Walt Disney World together, we decided to go.

Enjoying a Mickey Mouse-shaped ice cream treat at Walt Disney World in 2009.

It was a short trip, but we had fun eating, drinking, hanging out with my dad and his buddies, while also taking in Disney, Epcot and then making a day trip to Cocoa Beach before we flew back home.

A friend we made at Disney World.
My Tio Jorge and my dad at the reunion banquet.

Peter at Disney World: the happiest place on earth!

An old-fashioned selfie with a camera at Cocoa Beach, Florida.

Let’s Be Really Frank

So, yes. This was another winning recipe from the Cook the 40 Challenge; another recipe that took something so simple and perhaps not so sophisticated, and turned it into something much more than just your average hot dog.

Would President Eisenhower want to have a Kogi Dog with a beer? I think so. I would—and did—actually. But you know what? I’d eat this with a glass of champagne and a side of caviar, too. I mean why not, right.

Elda XO