I hope you had a wonderful 4th of July, celebrating the independence of this great nation, the Unites States of America. I thank the Lord for the great principles of freedom our nation was founded on!Nathan's of Coney Island is a great American institution and so is Nathan's annual July 4th hot dog eating contest, ever since Nathan's opened in 1916. As you may know, in yesterday's 93rd annual contest, six-time Japanese champion Takeru "Tsunami" Kobayashi and defending American champion Joey Chestnut, were tied with 59 hot dogs eaten after the new ten-minute time limit, but Chesnut held onto the title by winning a five-dog "eat off". It looks like the mustard colored Nathan's championship belt stays in the good old USA, at least for another year!
Though formerly an Island, Coney Island is a peninsula located in south Brooklyn, NYC. Famous for its beach on the Atlantic, Coney Island once hosted a major resort. It was also well known for its amusement parks, and of course, for Nathan's. The area reached its zenith of popularity in the early 1900’s.
A “Coney Island hot dog” is widely understood to be a hot dog with “Coney sauce” (This sauce is not used in the contest mentioned above), usually a kind of chili without beans. In reality, Coney sauce did not originate on Coney Island but is thought to have been invented in Michigan. Here is a recipe I developed a couple of years ago, taking what seemed to me to be the best of the ingredients from a number of Coney sauce recipes.
Ingredients:
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 clove minced garlic
2 tbsp. butter
1 lb. lean ground beef
2 tbsp. yellow mustard
2 tbsp. cider vinegar
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. hot pepper sauce
1 cup ketchup
2 tsp. paprika (Hungarian paprika preferred)
2 tsp. chili powder
Instructions:
Sauté the onions and garlic, add the ground beef, cook until brown, drain off excess grease. Combine all of the other ingredients and mix well. Add mixture to the ground beef mixture. Stir well and heat. Let simmer for at least an hour.
