Cinco De Mayo: Mexican Hot Dogs

To celebrate Cinco de Mayo (yes I'm way behind on posts, but this one actually catches me up...so now it's time to cook more), I had some people over to eat some mexican hot dogs. What are mexican hot dogs? Well, I thought it might only be a San Francisco thing, but googling mexican hot dogs does indeed seem to bring up the same food. Basically it's your typical hot dog wrapped in bacon. To complement the dish, I also made some stuffed potatoes. Since we're already using bacon, I decided to go for a ranch based potato recipe.


To bake the spuds a little quicker, we can use the microwave to help us out. In order to stick it in the microwave, make sure the puncture holes in the potatoes, otherwise I'm told they might explode.


For both the potatoes and the hot dogs, we're going to need some sauteed onions.


My eyes were feeling particularly sensitive that day, and I had to walk away 3 times while cutting these.


Now after 15 minutes in the microwave, put them in the oven for 15 minutes so they're a little crispy.


In the meantime, we'll saute the onions. Just having watched Paula Dean, I decided to go with the butter approach...and a pretty good amount.


Saute until a little translucent.


Take the potatoes out of the oven and chop off the top.


Take out all that starchy filling, being as careful as you can to leave the skin in-tact.


You can see I didn't do the greatest job here as one of mine is a little sloppy.


Take the potato and mash it together. Even though the recipe didn't call for it, I decided to add a little butter.


I also took some oil and coated the outside of the skins. Then I salted the skins with kosher salt.


I took some frozen broccoli, and since my friends don't like veggies that much, I put less than the recommended amount.


With half of the sauteed onions from before.


The heart of this recipe is the ranch dressing. Because it requires half a cup, I decided to go with the fat free version. I should probably try to taste test the two, but the fat free seems to be good enough for me.


Mix it all together


And stuff them as high as you can. Anytime I stuff potatoes or mushrooms or anything else, I never know what to do with the leftover stuffing...

Anyways, put them in the oven for another 15 minutes or so.


The main ingredients for the mexican hot dogs: hot dogs and bacon. I really like the Hebrew national hot dogs, plus I'm supporting my own brethren. The motto always cracks me up to: "Hebrew Nationao. We Answer to a Higher Authority"


One slice of bacon seems to fit perfectly around the hot dog.



Then just stick them in the pan. No oil's needed since bacon emits so much grease.



Anytime I deal with bacon, I'm usually disgusted with myself afterwards, and I make sure to pat it down with paper towels to get rid of some of the grease.


And here's the final product:


The hot dogs were good. Not quite as good as a drunk mexican hot dog from the vendors in the Mission district, but what is? As for the potatoes, they were pretty good--a little bland IMO, but the others seemed to like them a lot.