Southern Dog

This hot dog encompasses the richness of Southern cooking as well as a variety of pork !

To make this, you will need to separately prepare the following two items :

• Collard Greens
• Southern Style Hash Brown Casserole

These may be made well in advance, and frozen until needed. Otherwise, prepare to spend about 5 hours making them just for this dish !

Nothing says Southern like a smoked country sausage link. Fortunately, these are readily available. Since they are nearly pre-cooked, all that is needed is a quick grilling to heat and char the link.

I place mine on a buttered and toasted potato hot dog bun. Layer the collard greens on top of the dog and then spoon the hash brown casserole on top of that. It is a meal in itself.

French Dog

This is another of my series of Inspired Hot Dogs, in this case, based on elements of French cuisine.

To make this hot dog, you will need the following, already prepared :

• Mushroom and Onion accompaniment for beef (Deluxe Version)
• Duck Confit

Of course, the duck confit takes quite a while to prepare, so you will either need to purchase it (if you can find it anywhere) or think about making this well in advance !

I started with a 6 inch long mini-baguette, as you might expect with any French meal. This was split, not quite in two, and buttered with a compound butter made of the following:

• 2 tablespoons salted butter
• 1 tablespoon Herbes de Provence
• 1 clove of garlic, finely minced

The bread is then toasted on the grill.

On this, I used what would typically be a French country sausage:  A mild pork sausage link seasoned with garlic and herbs. These were grilled over low heat until brown and crispy on the outside.

Place the sausage on the toasted baguette, top liberally with the onion/mushroom mixture, and add pulled duck confit to the top.

This is rich in two ways: the flavor, and the cost, which ended up being about $12/dog, not even counting the time. Still, it was well worth it.