Corn Dogs

I can't, in good conscience, recommend you make corn dogs at home. Not after watching HBO's The Weight of the Nation this weekend. That show has me so terrified of my belly fat that I went for an hour long bike ride yesterday. I know that doesn't sound like much to you movers and shakers, but I'm counting on my fellow slugs out there to be impressed. So why did I make them? Because I hadn't watched the show yet. And because I could. And I'm not going to lie, it was fun. And they were good. Crunchy on the outside and slightly fluffy on the inside. But that wasn't me recommending them.

CORN DOGS

Yield: 16

1 cup yellow cornmeal

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 cup sugar

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 egg

1 cup milk

1 quart corn oil or vegetable oil for frying

2 (16 ounce) packages beef frankfurters

16 wooden skewers

1.      In a medium bowl, combine cornmeal, flour, salt, sugar and baking powder. Stir in eggs and milk. Pour batter into a tall drinking glass and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

2.      Heat oil in a deep saucepan over medium heat to 365º F.

3.      Dry the frankfurters with a clean dish towel or paper towels. Insert a wooden skewer into each frankfurter. Dip in the batter until well coated (if the batter is too thick, thin with a little milk).

4.      Fry 2 or 3 corn dogs at a time until lightly browned, about 3-4 minutes. Drain on paper towels.

barely adapted from allrecipes.com (submitted by SUZZANNA)

all the dry ingredients

adding milk & egg

batter mixed

I put the batter in a tall glass so it would
be easier to dip the long hot dogs in.

For once I had some foresight and put a bowl under the glass.
I had a feeling it might expand with baking powder in the batter.
That five minutes I saved not cleaning my refrigerator meant
I got to watch Game of Thrones five minutes sooner.

hot dogs dried off and sticks inserted
Don't skip drying off the hot dogs (or the batter won't stick).

I used organic beef hot dogs with no nitrates. If you're going
to fry stuff at home, at least make good quality junk food.

dipping a dog

dipped

frying

flipped

So my brilliant idea of using a flat skillet instead of a saucepan
didn't work out quite as planned. My first few corn dogs were
very flat and wide. Don't ask me why I didn't see that coming.
After that, I made them one at a time and used tongs to
rotate them, so they would come out more rounded.

Here is a wide, flat one.

It looks a little funny, but it's just as tasty.

Here are some of the more rounded ones.

You can see in the background that
I reheated some in the toaster oven.
But they're best freshly fried.

.