bagel dogs

the other day my man and i were walking down the street when we spied, plastered on a bus kiosk, a poster of this gigantic, cylindrical, flesh-colored thing encased in a tan-ish dough-y blanket and dotted with little black and tan specks.

"yum," we whimpered and leered simultaneously, "bagel dog".

so we turned right around and went home. and i made some. using my trusty old bagel recipe. my dogs were fake. his dogs were real. both dogs were good. that's the power of advertising for you.

bagel dough
1/2 cup warm water
1/2 Tablespoon sugar
1 ½ teaspoon yeast
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups flour

place yeast in warm sugar water and let froth. add flour and salt and knead until smooth and shiny. depending on your type of flour and altitude, you may have to add a little more or less water (i added a little more). let the dough rest at least 20 minutes...poor old dough, after all that stretching and beating it needs to relax a little! then, lightly flour a surface and, depending on the size of your dogs, divide the dough into either four or eight segments. eight for those skinny little faux dogs, four for those elephantine neiman ranch fearless franks. with your hands, roll each segment into a rope shape that is about twice as long as your dog. place the snake on your floured surface and, using a rolling pin, roll width-wise so you get a flat, rectangular shape. place the dog at one end of the rolled dough at a 45 degree angle and coil up to the top of the dog, making sure the dough overlaps a bit to completely cover the dog. repeat with remaining dogs. place on a well greased (or floured) cookie sheet and let rest another 20 minutes. at this point you should bring to boil at least 4 inches of water in a large pot with 1-2 T. sugar. after 20 minutes place the bagel dogs in rapidly boiling water for 30 seconds to 1 minute on each side. the heat of the water is very important since this is what will make the dough puff up and get chewy. place a lid on the pot once the bagels are in the water to maintain a high temperature. drain and place on well greased, light colored cookie sheet and sprinkle with the toppings of your choice (i like salt, dried garlic bits, sesame seeds and fresh black pepper) or leave them plain. bake at 450 for about 15-20 minutes. serve with ketchup and homemade mustard.