Original Detroit Coney Dog & Chili Sauce Recipe

Directions

• Detroit Coney Dogs
• Lightly oil a skillet and place over medium-low heat. Add the hot dogs to the skillet and cook them until the skins are lightly browned and the insides are warmed through – about 6-8 minutes. Cooking on lower heat helps ensure the hot dogs won’t burn and the casings won’t split. Turn them frequently while cooking.
• Steam the buns. Using a steaming basket in a pot with a lid, steam the buns for a minute or two – just until hot and pliable. If you have no steamer of any sort, microwaving them for 30-45 seconds works as well.
• Place a cooked hot dog into each steamed bun. Then ladle coney sauce on top. It should be enough sauce to cover most of the hot dog and some of the bun, but not so much that it’s spilling over everywhere onto the plate.
• Spoon over a single line of yellow mustard down the middle, atop the coney sauce.
• Sprinkle a generous amount of the chopped, raw onion over top the entire dog.
• Enjoy! Eat with your hands, or use a knife & fork.
• Detroit Coney Sauce
• Ensure that the two hot dogs are smashed completely into a paste.
• In a Dutch oven or very large/deep skillet, heat the tallow over medium-high heat. Then add the ground beef and the hot dog paste. Brown the meat over medium heat, stirring regularly and chopping up with a wooden spoon to make the meat into small crumbles.
• Once meat is browned all the way through, strain it through a metal mesh strainer to separate the grease from the meat. Set the grease aside.
• With the meat back into the skillet or Dutch oven, stir in the tomato paste and vinegar.
• Put the separated grease into a separate skillet, and place over medium heat. When the grease is hot, gradually sprinkle in the saltine cracker dust, stirring constantly. Just sprinkle a little a a time, stirring. Keep adding saltine dust until the mixture in the pan has the consistency of a thin paste (you may not need all of the saltines).
• Once the color of the grease/cracker paste is a medium brown, stir all of it into the pan with the meat mixture. Then stir in all of the dry seasonings and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes.
• Stir the beef stock into the meat mixture. Let mixture cook until it reaches a low simmer. Then reduce heat to as low as possible, and cover the pan with a tight-fitting lid. Simmer on very low for the next 1 1/2 to 2 hours, stirring occasionally. If the mixture ever begins looking dry, add some more beef stock.
• Remove 1 cup of the sauce and puree it with a blender (immersion blender or countertop blender). Then stir the blended portion back into the rest of the sauce.
• Check the sauce’s consistency. Sauce should be medium-thick (not runny, but not thick as mud). If your sauce is too thick, thin it slightly with water or beef stock. If sauce is too thin, continue simmering on low with the lid off for a few more minutes. The sauce shouldn’t be too much thicker than gravy.