Wondering How To Pack More Flavor Into Hot Dogs? Make Them Indian-Style

There's no bad time to have a hot dog. Whether you're enjoying a hot, juicy frankfurter on a beautiful summer's day (at a baseball game, perhaps, but hopefully not at one of the five most expensive baseball stadiums for hot dogs) or snapping into a crisp hot dog steaming in the chilly winter air, it's a reliable, reassuring meal. But at a certain point, you may want to branch out from ketchup, mustard, and sauerkraut and try something a little different with your dog. So why not try and lend some Indian flavor to your hot dog experience?

Now, admittedly, Indian cuisine and hot dogs are not exactly an intuitive pairing — not least because beef and pork, the two most common types of hot dog, are not generally eaten in India. (The two most common religions in India are Hinduism, which holds cows as sacred and forbids the consumption of beef, and Islam, which considers pork haram.) But that doesn't mean you can't experiment. In fact, if you want to get into the spirt of the thing, you can make use of veggie dogs, or perhaps lamb sausage. (Strictly speaking, turkey hot dogs aren't accurate to India, but they'll do in a pinch.) And there's nothing like a bright chutney to add a bit of life to a dish, as Ina Garten's grilled cheese upgrade can attest. Add some curry paste or powder, and you've got one flavorful hot dog.

There's nothing wrong with using good old-fashioned hot dog buns for these Indian hot dogs, but if you want to really have some fun with it, you have no shortage of options. You can use pav, a kind of soft bread roll popular in Mumbai, for the closest to a bun-like texture, but there are other routes to travel. Take, for instance, the humble naan bread — if you roll up a hot dog and the assorted toppings in the middle, that's a seriously dense sandwich. (Yes, we're calling a hot dog a sandwich for this purpose — don't argue with us.) You can even get mini naan for the purpose.

As for what you'll use as a topping, why not give chaat a try? An Indian dish that's often a mix of starches (like corn or potatoes), chutney, and other flavorful additives, it's not too dissimilar to a vegetarian chili dog in practice. In fact, there are a few places where you can get these Indian-style hot dogs — they are, of course, called "chaat dogs."