Battle of the Bagel Dogs

The origin of the bagel dog, recent though it may be, is up for some debate. Many sources, including the New York Times, credit a North Carolina bakery owner named Milan R. Burger. The story goes that in 1980 his company Temptee Bagel bought 800 Sabrett hot dogs from New York along with the requisite buns and condiments, with a plan to sell hot dogs out of the bakery. However, he was quickly informed by a health inspector that he did not have the proper licensing to sell that type of prepared food, only baked goods. Wrapping the hot dogs in bagel dough and baking them made him legal without needing to buy a restaurant license.

However, Wikipedia also correctly points out that the first trademark for the term “bagel dog” was registered 2 years prior to this, in 1978. It was registered by Roger Pavlow, the proprietor of Marin Bagel Company in northern California, a business whose storefront had closed by 2012 according to Yelp reviews but whose bagels were still being sold in area stores. History does not record, however, what became of his idea for bagel dogs.

At my local grocery store, 2 bagel dog brands uneasily coexist in the freezer case. New York City’s Nathan’s Famous Coney Island Beef Bagel Dogs, and Chicago’s own Vienna Beef Mini Bagel Dogs. I brought both home to give them a head-to-head tasting.

As a booster of all things Chicago, I am sorry to report that the Vienna Beef mini dogs did not fare well in this comparison. First off–Nathan’s dogs are damn tasty for a skinless dog, fatty and salty and garlicky, and these were the real Nathan’s dogs in bagel dog form. The Vienna Beef version on the other hand featured Lil’ Smokies-sized skinless dogs that were lean and shriveled and not very highly seasoned at all. Secondly, the Nathan’s Bagel Dogs used Everything Bagel seasoning on the bagel dough, giving the overall flavor a boost. The Vienna Beef mini dogs were wrapped in a layer of plain bagel dough that engulfed them, making the sausage-to-bread ratio much lower. They could have used that additional seasoning as well, but did not have it.

The Nathan’s bagel dogs were the clear winner in this comparison. As someone who is all too keenly aware of the various NYC/everywhere else foodie fights and especially those involving Chicago (if I had a dime for every time I heard someone call Chicago-style deep dish pizza a “casserole” I’d have enough money to hire a lawyer after I light the next person who says it on fire) there is one city-to-city showdown where Chicago should have the clear advantage: the hot dog. The classic, dragged-through-the-garden Chicago dog is the gold standard by which all other hot dogs should be judged even if it’s not entirely clear that it’s the best hot dog Chicagoland has to offer (the more minimalist “depression dog” as served by Gene & Jude’s in River Grove has been called the best hot dog in America so many times that it’s not even a particularly controversial statement). New Yorkers, as much as they love their own “dirty water” hot dog carts, will often grudgingly admit the superiority of the Chicago dog as well.

On a subsequent trip to the same store a few days later, I found another rendition of the bagel dog, this one from a brand called “Chicago Deli.” Rather than the freezer, it was in the regular cooler case by the other hot dogs, and the coating of poppy seeds on the bagel–a standard for the buns that Chicago-style hot dogs are served in–gave me some hope that this would be a better product.

And it was better than the Vienna Beef minis at any rate, but it was still lacking. Whether the minimalist version or the salad-inna-bun, a Chicago style hot dog has many flavors in addition to the sausage and the bread–the pungency of diced onions and mustard, the sweetness of pickle relish, the briny heat of sport peppers. Fully-dressed Chicago dogs add the sour dill flavor of a pickle wedge, the sweet/savory combo of tomato wedges, the grassy bitterness of celery salt.

The comparison had not been a fair one. Vienna Beef, I don’t know why you would sell such an insipid version of a bagel dog when a truly superior product could be yours instead. All you would need to do is to invent Chicago-style Hot Dog Everything Bagel seasoning, as I have just done. I really need somebody who is savvy in the ways of money to help me profit from my genius instead of just throwing it out here in a free blog for anyone to read. My Chicago-style Hot Dog Everything Bagel seasoning consists of dehydrated onions, dehydrated dill pickles, dehydrated neon green pickle relish, tomatoes that have been seasoned with celery salt and then dehydrated, dehydrated sport peppers, mustard powder, and poppy seeds. It is maybe the best idea I’ve ever had.

I acquired both Nathan’s franks and Vienna Beef franks. I’m fairly certain that these are a skinless frank rather than the good natural-casing hot dogs that Vienna Beef-branded hot dog stands often use, but I also don’t believe that, stuffed inside a bagel while it is simmered and then baked, the snappy natural casing is providing much of an advantage in a bagel dog. I used the King Arthur recipe for bagels but added some sourdough starter discard, which gave me enough dough to split into eleven 100 gram pieces. I made 4 bagel dogs with Vienna Beef, 4 with Nathan’s and made bagels from the other 3 pieces.

For both types of bagel dogs (and the bagels), I simmered the shaped dough in water with malt powder dissolved in it, then baked for 21 minutes, brushed with an egg white wash, seasoned, and put back into the oven for another 4 minutes. For the Chicago-style everything bagel seasoning mix, I also whisked a little yellow mustard into the egg wash.

For the standard, or should I say New York-style everything bagel seasoning mix, I used a simple egg white wash instead.

I hadn’t added any salt to my Chicago-style everything bagel mix, given that so many of the ingredients were already quite salty–the pickles, pickle relish, sport peppers, and of course the celery salt. It was a good call–this seasoning mix was exactly what I wanted it to be. Could you close your eyes and be fooled into thinking you were eating a Chicago dog? Not really, no. There are clear textural differences between the juicy pile of vegetables and pickles that normally accompany a Chicago dog and their dehydrated counterparts. The dehydrated onions were sweeter than their raw bite. The juicy brine of the pickles and sport peppers was missing.

But the overall balance of flavors was similar, if a little muted. Dehydration may have changed some of the flavors, but it also deepened and intensified them. The sweet pickle relish retained a bit of moisture, giving it some chew, and the tomatoes’ flavors were amplified by the celery salt they’d been seasoned with. The onions, though sweeter, still retained some sulfurous bite and the dried pickles and sport peppers covered all in a sort of essence of sour and spice that only enhanced the other flavors.

Meanwhile, the NY-style everything bagel dog was exactly what you expect it to be–Everything Bagel seasoning is fantastic, and has that terrific sweet garlic flavor that my Chicago-style everything bagel dog seasoning was missing and a saltier kick than I expected. The Nathan’s dogs were still saltier and fattier than the Vienna Beef dogs, though baking in the oven for 25 minutes had rendered much of that fat out of them. These were terrific bagel dogs.

But my family was unanimous in preferring the Chicago-style version. Maybe we are just big homers and will always cheer on the local team. But there is something to the gestalt of all these flavors. Vienna Beef dogs are designed to be served with a number of sour, salty, spicy and pungent condiments, and a plain bagel, or even a poppy-seed bagel, doesn’t give them the boost they usually get. Does this make them bad hot dogs? No, it makes them the right hot dogs for Chicago. And I think if anybody out there tried my version of Chicago-style bagel dogs, they’d agree.

But you’ll have to make your own, sorry! Or talk some rich corporation into paying me a zillion bucks for the recipe 🙂