Our sense of smell and taste goes hand in hand with the emotional state of nostalgia. When I say “County Fair,” what comes to mind, I’ll bet a dime to a dollar you’re thinking of a particular food found once a year when the Fair comes around. The smell of fifty or so boiling deep fryers mixed with BBQ and the animal barn off in the distance is burned in my noodle when it comes to Fair time in our town. I swear you can smell it from the parking lot. There is something about the mixing aromas of French fries, funnel cakes, battered onions, jalapeno poppers, and the classic corn dog that lights my brain up. It’s like watching a horror movie, you know something terrible is going to happen, but you can’t take your eyes off the screen.
Well, it looks like for the first time, in my lifetime, there will be no fair this year, and the faces are long in Mudville. But I want my corn dog fix and those frostbitten boxed corn dogs from Costco just won’t do. And I’m at home so no excuse for eating crap either. What’s a relatively healthy corn dog fiend supposed to do? Today’s recipe is the answer to that question.
One could quickly shove a stick in the dog to make these more realistic, but I opted for a double-fisted version instead. We stay pretty much grain-free in our house, so I made these with a coarse ground cassava flour called Farinha De Mandioca used in a Brazilian dish called Farofa. All you corn lovers out there go ahead and opt-in for cornmeal to get the classic taste. Let’s cook
Handheld Corn Dog
- 2-3 Fork in the road Honest Dogs (I like these because they are fatter than other grass-fed hot dogs)
- 1/2 cup Farinha De Mandioca (this is grain-free) or cornmeal (this is gluten-free)
- 3 Tbsp cassava flour (grain-free) or your favorite gluten-free flour
- 2 Tbsp avocado oil
- 1/4 tsp salt
- cold water
Method
- Preheat your oven to 350 degrees (if you have a convection option on your oven use it if not it’s ok)
- Mix dry ingredients in a bowl
- Add in oil and mix with a fork until well incorporated
- Add in small amounts cold water until the flour keeps its shape when you press it together with your fingers. It needs to hold together when you shape it around the hot dogs
- Cut the hot dogs in half
- Roll the first piece of dough out to the length of one of the cut hot dogs then fold it up around the dog like a taco
- Repeat the step above to cover the top side of the dog. Use your hands and fingers to press the dough evenly around the dog until it covers it all around
- Finish the rest of the dogs
- Place them on a cookie sheet with parchment paper
- Spray or brush oil over the tops and side of the dogs
- Bake in the oven without turning for 25 minutes
- Remove and let cool for 5-10 minutes
- Serve them up with your favorite condiment
- Sorry no crispy bits at the end of the stick