Alright, let’s do a little of an introduction for those who are new to Japadog! What is a Japadog? If you’ve never had a Japadog, it’s basically a Japanese version of the Hot Dog stand. Well, they have evolved from being a hot dog stand to several hot dog stands in downtown Vancouver, and now they even have their own store! Check them out at: http://www.japadog.com.
Still don’t know what it is? Maybe a picture would help!
They sell ranging from a variety of hot dogs. The regular ones, you get for $3-$4.50. And the “special ones” you get for $4.50-$7. It’s quite insane if you think about it, $7 for a hot dog? I thought they used to sell them for a dollar! Well, not anymore! After the Japanese had perfect it.
So, my girlfriend and I decided to try and make this at home. And we found out, it’s really not that complicated.
Here’s what we used for ingredients (but of course, you can put whatever toppings you like):
- 1 Smoked Sausage (from Costco – it’s super long, 1 sausage could make 2 hot dogs)
- Sliced Mushrooms
- 1 finely-chopped Onion
- Japanese Kewpie Mayonnaise
- Teriyaki Sauce (for our recipe, we used Brickstone Fine Foods Sassy Teriyaki Sauce)
- Bonito Flakes
- Honey Mustard
- I almost forgot…The Buns! (any would do, I couldn’t find hot dog buns that day at my local grocer, so I got big buns which were perfect for the huge dogs!)
So, here are step-by-step instructions. (Sorry, no pictures as our hands were busy!)
- Oven baked the sausage until cooked.
- While you sausage is cooking, cut up your onion and slice up your mushrooms.
- Now do this part when the sausage is 90% complete, add a bit of oil to a pan on medium heat, fry the onions until they are golden brown.
- Now do the same to the mushrooms, make sure it doesn’t turn watery (that’s when you know it’s complete).
- Turn your heat to low and stir in the Teriyaki sauce to make it nice and hot! Be sure to stir constantly or it will burn up!
- Your sausage should be done when you finish this part. Take it out of the oven, let it sit for 1 minute and you can either slice it or cut it in half (if you get Costco’s ginormous sausages).
- Now, put your sausage on your bun and add your chosen toppings!! Be sure to add the hot toppings before you add the cold, this would keep your hot dog nice and hot! For ours, we first added onions, then mushrooms, then teriyaki sauce, then honey mustard, then Japanese mayo, and finally topped it with Bonito flakes.
- Serve HOT!!!
There we have it, homemade Japadog! It was so delicious that I think we will stop going to Japadog (sorry, your hotdogs are nice too). And start making our own! So, give it a try and let me know how it turns out. Be sure to leave me a comment down below. If you like this post, be sure to LIKE me here.