Vincent Price's Stuffed Frankfurters

Vincent Price at a ballgame handing his wife some frankfurters

As I said in the podcast You're the Wurst!!! my favorite cookbook is Mary and Vincent Price's A Treasury of Great Recipes. It's a fantastic collection of recipes from long forgotten restaurants around the world along with a few family recipes from the man himself (along with his wife Mary).

The pictures are great, most of the recipes are gorgeously classic and a few of the recipes are super quaint and of-their-time.

This is one of those recipes........ Well it was up until  few years ago.

This recipe would have been considered overkill or novelty with the way it's made, but in the last few years ridiculous recipes have become de rigueur for food sites to get clicks and eyeballs on their sites.

While it is a bit antiquated in the way it is written (I have adjusted the recipe to be easily followed), it could definitely be a featured recipe in a BuzzFeed video. It has everything today's crazy cooks want: meat, cheese, butter and bacon. You can't lose!

I love hot dogs and eat them often but I've yet to make this recipe. I will damn sure make this in the next few weeks though. The more time I've spent with this recipe the more it calls to me like a siren song that can't be denied after fighting a fruitless fight. Oh well, there are worse things in the world than eating a cheese filled, bacon wrapped hot dog right?

Let's ghoul this! (see what I did there?)

Mary and Vincent Price's Stuffed Frankfurters

4 Frankfurters (hot dogs)
1 tablespoon butter
2 medium onions
2 slices of sharp cheddar cheese- Let's call it enough cheese to fill 4 hot dogs
4 Strips of bacon
4 hot dog rolls
mustard

Special equipment:
toothpicks

• Saute the onions in the butter in a pan over medium heat until the onions are soft and light brown.

• Cut a lengthwise slit into the hot dogs

• Fill the hot dogs with the cooked onions

•Top the onions with enough cheese to cover the length of the dog.

•Wind one slice of bacon around the stuffed hot dog in a spiral until the dog is covered. Secure the bacon in place with toothpicks.

• Place under a boiler and cook until the cheese is melted and the bacon has browned. Alternately, you can cook in a pan until crisp.

• Place the dogs onto a bun and top with mustard (the only condiment you should use).

Enjoy!


You can double this recipe perfectly for a whole pack of hot dogs (not the buns though), but I wanted to present the recipe as it was written.

If you make this, please post a pic for us on our Facebook page. You can also reach us on our Instagram page or Twitter page.

Thanks for reading and listening.

Cheers,
John

You Butter WERK!!!

©2017 John Houser III

On the You Butter WERK!!! episode of the podcast we covered butter. The recipe I  said I would put  up here is as simple as I described it. There's not way you can do it wrong. i mean, you could royally fuck it up by not following the recipe in the way it written (read and re-read the recipe before attempting).

That said......

This recipe is more of a guideline. You can switch out different herbs for each other. Make sure to use the basic proportions (i.e. butter to herb ratio) and you'll be fine.

The tricky part of this whole business is pushing it into a log (I will refrain from a poop joke here). it may seem complicated but after you do it once or twice you'll never have to sweat it again. Just make sure to use parchment paper. It's a little more forgiving than plastic wrap for beginners and you have all of that parchment sitting around doing nothing anyway. You do have parchment paper right?

Let's mix this up.

Rouxde Cooking School Herb Compound Butter

1 pound butter-  room temperature
1 tablespoon chives
1 tablespoon rosemary
1 tablespoon thyme
1 tablespoon sage
1 clove garlic- chopped and mashed into a paste
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

Special equipment
Parchment paper- 16 inches to be safe
metal sheet pan

In a large bowl, mix all ingredients until incorporated and homogeneous. Scrape all of the herb butter onto the middle of the parchment. Fold the parchment over the top of the butter and then while holding the bottom half of the parchment, use the edge of the sheet pan to push the butter that's under the parchment into a log shape (see the video below). Roll the log completely up in the parchment and twist the ends so it looks like you have a giant Cheech and Chong joint.

Place the butter joint into the fridge for at least an hour to help firm everything up and melt the flavors.

To use, just slice off coins to the thickness you desire and make whatever you're topping instantly more delicious.

Enjoy!

The Price of Cooking

Hello boils and ghouls, how's it hanging? Halloween is my favorite holiday and although it does have lots of goofy culinary applications I won't be giving you any recipes this year for eyeball cupcakes or bloody finger ramen. This year my treat to you is the gift of Vincent Price, the master of horror who is known for being in some of the greatest horror movies ever and also for his rap and subsequent cackling on  Michael Jackson's Thriller. It's a little known fact about the Missouri native that, besides being a contributor and benefactor to the fine arts, was a terrific gourmand and cook book author.

Besides the books, which he wrote with his wife, he recorded many how-to auditory excursions that were a step by step instructions on how to make various global cuisines. Some of his recipes are now quite quaint, including ingredients like MSG and accessories such as asbestos trivets. Over all, the recipes are sound and the techniques he walks the listeners through won't be mentioned for another thirty years when the food networks starts up. 

Vincent Price also recorded many radio programs and for a while had his own show called "The Price of Fear" which spanned 22 episodes and were fantastic. Each episode was supposed to be a little slice of Price's life with the macabre as an ever present character. The episode I have linked to this post (specialty of the House) is a combination of his two great loves. It's a horror story that is based around food, restaurants and the gourmand experience. I love this episode and I hope you will two.

Below is the story which you can listen to at your convenience. 



  Happy Halloween everyone! Just in case you were wondering I will be going trick or treating with my son dressed like Wilfred. I bought that costume last year and bullshit if I'm not going to get a few wears out of it for as much money as I paid for it. Be safe and watch out for bag snatchers!

Cheers,
John