Icelandic-Style Hot Dogs

I hope everyone (who celebrates) had a Happy Christmas. We had our family party yesterday, which was fun, and now I'm ready to wind down. I'm taking this week off from work so I'm going to do lots of leisurely activities and I think I might attempt to make pho or soup dumplings. We'll see! I mean, in addition to being delicious, it would make great blog fodder; if you haven't noticed, posts are less frequent these days as I start to run out of inspiration (and because 2016 was just really busy in general so I just had less time for my favorite hobby).

Today's post is one that tugs at my heartstrings because it's a meal inspired by my recent trip to Iceland. We enjoyed these awesome "gas station hot dogs" on our road trip and decided that we can't ever enjoy a plain old hot dog with just ketchup anymore. There really isn't too much to this post, except that I do share my recipe for remoulade, which is a really important ingredient and sorry, you can't just substitute mayo. It's like a super indulgent junk food experience and I think I might make these again when Super Bowl Sunday rolls around in a month.

Ingredients:
hot dogs
buns
french fried onions
diced raw onions
honey mustard
remoulade
ketchup

remoulade
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon caper brine
1 clove garlic, minced
1 teaspoon capers, minced
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon pepper
½ cup olive oil

To make the remoulade, start by finely mincing some garlic and capers.

Grab a small container and crack in an egg yolk. Squeeze in a little lemon juice, drizzle in some caper brine, and toss in the minced garlic and capers. Whisk to combine. Then, slowly drizzle in the olive oil, whisking continuously, until the sauce emulsifies and looks pale, thick, and gloopy.

Grab the other toppings, including diced raw onion, crispy fried onions, honey mustard, and ketchup. The mustard they used in Iceland was actually a special mustard, and though honey mustard is a really good substitute, I really wish I'd picked up a souvenir bottle of the real stuff because it's admittedly better.

Cook up your hot dogs as you wish. (The ones we enjoyed abroad were always boiled.)

Steam the buns and then tuck the two types of onions into the bottom. Drizzle on a little remoulade and honey mustard, nestle in the hot dog, and then squeeze on some ketchup. This is exactly how they built the hot dogs in Iceland and I love it because it prevents messy topping spillage.

I really love the texture of the crispy onions, the bite from the raw onions, and the sweet and savory and tart flavors of the three sauces. It really elevates the mundane hot dog. To complete our meal, we had a salad, some roasted vegetables, gruyere mac & cheese, and some bread & butter pickles.

Here are the recipe pages: