Bacon-Wrapped Mexican Hot Dogs with Street Corn Salsa

I’ll never forget the first time I ordered a hot dog from a street vendor in Mexico, using what at the time was the kind of barely rudimentary Spanish that one only achieves by being truant for the majority of their high school foreign language classes.

I knew I wanted mustard, and “mostaza” was simple enough. Steeling my courage, I tried to explain to the hotdoguero that I also wanted “Salsa tipico, no perdon, es una salsa suizo, pero sin trozos, es una salsa de tomate,” which very loosely (and poorly) translates to, “Regular sauce, no, I’m sorry, it’s a sauce that’s smooth, but without chunks, it’s a sauce made with tomato.” I mean, how do you describe ketchup to someone that may not have ever heard of it? I didn’t know they were eating ketchup in Mexico. I didn’t know much of anything. The mustachioed vendor, stained white apron, forehead sweaty from the heat of the wagon and the evening 100-plus degree heat, looked me up and down, blinked a couple of times, and clarified (in English): “Ketchup?”

South of the border, those guys are working with the humble hot dog on a whole different level. Present someone in Mexico with a typical boiled, unadorned New York “dirty water” hot dog, and you’re likely to be met with the same vaguely disappointed, sad response you would get from a kid who just saw a cupcake without frosting for the first time.

That’s because in Mexico (and particularly in the state of Sonora), encased meat tubes are just the beginning, in a culture that approaches hot dogs with a decided “more is more” attitude. They’re but a vehicle for so much in the way of additional toppings. Larger, more substantial bollilo rolls replace the typical hot dog roll, allowing for more structure to contain everything else that follows; minimally, that’s a bacon-wrapped hot dog, topped with refried beans, onions, tomatoes, mayonnaise, ketchup, mustard, and jalapeños.

Our version combines our love of Mexican-style hot dogs with our love for another customary dish among street vendors: Elote, roasted ears of feed corn slathered with mayonnaise, chili powder, and cotija cheese. Use fresh sweet corn, if you can; just boil it up and cut it off the cob, before tossing with mayonnaise, butter, chipotle chili powder, and cotija or crumbled feta cheese.

Frozen corn also works in a pinch, though it can get a little bit mushy by the time you’ve put a good char on it.

You can cook your bacon-wrapped hot dogs any way you’d like, although in a skillet, you often end up with bacon that’s not uniformly cooked, and spends the entire cooking time trying to unravel itself from your hot dog. I think it’s much easier to pierce the hot dog with a fork a few times, wrap it in bacon, and cook it on a baking rack set atop a baking sheet (so the heat flows evenly all around the outside) in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes.