What a grand world this would be if the hot dog and the reuben joined to live in harmony. Ben and I both love a good hot dog, but the weakness is often the bun. I guess the squishy white bread serves the purpose of keeping the mustard off your fingers, but nobody eats a hot dog for the bun… that is, until today. When your bun is essentially an open-faced reuben sandwich that you wrap around your hot dog, the “bun” becomes the star of the show!
Today’s adventure was messy but delicious.
ReuBUN Hot Dog
1 hot dog
1 slice of marble rye bread
Thousand Island dressing to taste
2 thin slices pastrami
2-3 tablespoons sauerkraut
2 slices Swiss cheese
- Boil hot dog in water for 3-4 minutes.
- While hot dog is boiling, prepare ReuBUN by heating a non-stick skillet and spreading dressing on one side of bread. Place in pan, dressing-side down. (Alternatively, you could use butter or mayonnaise.) Squirt a little more dressing on the bread, then top with pastrami, sauerkraut, and cheese. Cover and cook until cheese is melted and underside of bread is toasted.
- Remove to plate and place a hot dog on top of the cheese. Fold it over (if you can) and enjoy!
Long-time readers may remember a post that I made about hot dogs during the pandemic, wherein I gave you two hot dog stories, which you can read below.
What I failed to mention on the blog six years ago (though a shortened version made it into Facebook comments), was how disastrous our hot dog session really was that day, the third hot dog story.
Let me set the scene for you. It had rained that day, and our wooden steps to the patio were slick. Phil, the hot dog grill-master, was wearing flip-flops (footwear that, at my behest, he only fairly recently stopped referring to as thongs, which is what they were called in the midwest in the 1970s.) Need a moment? Me too. OK, back to our story…
Our hot dog hero started down the stairs with a tray fully loaded for the grill. His notoriously slick-soled flip-flop hit the first step, his feet went out from under him, and he landed hard with his back on the stairs. When he hit, he says he heard something crack. He moaned in pain, stunned, while hot dogs rolled all over the ground.
To Phil’s great credit, he is not one of those people whose first instinct is to laugh when misfortune of this kind befalls someone else. Sadly, I am cut from a different piece of cloth. Was it the cartoonish way his feet flew up in the air? Was it the way the hot dogs kept rolling long after he was down? Yes and yes. Still, still, I believe that I could have stifled inappropriate laughter, if only he had set aside his Phil-ness for just a moment when I was asking him if he was ok. Through gritted teeth, like a general on the battlefield who has just been hit, but whose only concern is for his troops, he winced and gasped, “Save the hot dogs… their skins… are impermeable…wash… the hot dogs…!”
Of course, at least one rib was broken, not to mention all faith in me as a loving partner when I burst out laughing. So, that was it, the third hot dog story. By comparison, our ReuBUN hot dog adventure today was delightful.
We could use your help in writing our next hot dog story. What type of hot dog variation do you think we should try next? Let us know in the comments (either on Facebook or the blog) and Ben will pick the one that most strikes his fancy!
I can picture you and Ben making a gourmet meal with hotdogs and crepes. I have a recipe for such. The hotdogs are sliced into coins. I haven’t made them in years so off the top of my head the details escape me.