Korean Hot Dogs

Fad or Trend, yet to be determined.

There is a major franchise recently opened in Toronto and soon to be in Vancouver taking hold of this corner of the hot dog world. Already established throughout Asia it will be fascinating to witness if this fad will take hold here in North America.

Essentially the Korean Hot Dog, locally referred to as Tokkebi and also known as a “Sticky hot dog” is built the same way a corn dog is, and we all have had that wonderful gastronomic experience. Don’t remember? Close your eyes and visualize a corn dog on a stick covered in French's Yellow Mustard while at the local fair or a baseball game. Oh , now you remember 😀

The basics are your choice of wiener, sausage or mozzarella skewered with a stick for easy handling, then coated in a sticky rice flour batter, rolled in panko breadcrumbs and deep fried. The rice flour is the new twist, instead of using cornmeal pancake batter on the hot dog in the aforementioned corn dog it is now rice flour.

The panko breadcrumb needs to be updated to make this new power sticky hot dog a true gluten free alternative.

We recommend two alternative ways to the current panko breadcrumb. The first is to use taro mashed and the 2nd is to use rice bread for the panko. This would be added just before deep frying.

You the gourmand can also choose from an infinite variety of add-on ingredients to be applied before deep frying such as noodles, fruits, vegetables, cheeses, seeds, nuts and meats.

Once cooked and the oil has receded you can choose your toppings too, such as sugar, ketchup, wasabi mayonnaise, kimchi, sriracha, again only your imagination can limit the choice.

The best part of the Korean style hot dog is the innovation and experimentation of flavour combinations.

The biggest hurdle to adding this to your cafe menu is overhead venting and the deep fryer itself. Both will require you to get a health inspector and building permits. The health inspector will have to revisit your coffee shop to verify and approve your new installation.

Question is, will this fad turn into a trend similar to the bubble tea craze? If it does, then the cafe owner yet again has an opportunity that very few have capitalized on. What is that ? Bubble tea is primarily an afternoon to evening drink, exactly the time frame most cafes are closed , but could be open, making more money to pay the bills. The same could possibly be said for the Sticky Hot Dog… maybe?

We are currently looking at some of the other alternative ways of preparing and cooking.