Easy Corn Dogs and Homemade Mustard Recipe

Makes 6
Prep time: 30 minutes
Total time: 1 hour 30 minutes

INGREDIENTS

for Tay’s mustard: 
1 cup|250ml distilled white vinegar 
1 cup|205 grams granulated sugar 
1 (4-ounce|113-gram) tin mustard powder, preferably Coleman’s 
1 tablespoon kosher salt (Diamond Crystal or about half as much Morton) 
3 large eggs 

for the corn dogs:
vegetable oil for deep-frying (about 2 quarts)
6 regular hot dogs
2 cups|260 grams all-purpose flour
1 cup|165 grams fine yellow cornmeal
¼ cup|50 grams granulated sugar
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 ¼ cups|310 ml well-shaken buttermilk
1 large egg, lightly beaten
Tay’s Mustard or your favorite sweet-hot mustard for serving

DIRECTIONS

1. Make the mustard: Combine the vinegar, sugar, mustard powder, salt, and eggs in a medium heatproof bowl and whisk until smooth. Pour an inch or so of water into a small saucepan, bring it to a boil over medium-high heat, then lower the heat to medium-low. Set the bowl in the saucepan (without touching the water). Start stirring right away and keep at it, using a rubber spatula to frequently stir and scrape the sides so the eggs don’t have the chance to scramble, until the mixture thickens to a consistency that’s a bit looser than your average Dijon mustard, about 15 minutes. Give it a good whisk to get rid of any clumps. Take the bowl off the pan, let the mustard cool, then cover and refrigerate until it’s fully chilled, 1 hour or so. It’ll thicken a bit more. Use it now or keep it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 weeks. 
2. Make the corn dogs: Get your oven to 250°F and line a baking sheet with a wire rack or paper towels. Put about 2 inches of oil in a heavy pot or Dutch oven and set it over medium-high heat until it registers 350°F on a deep-fry or candy thermometer.
3. While the oil is heating up, slide a long wooden skewer into each dog, stopping before the point pokes through the dog.
4. Dump 1 cup|130 grams of the flour onto a large plate, then roll the  hot dogs around to coat them in the flour, shaking off any excess. In a medium mixing bowl, combine the cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and remaining 1 cup flour, stir well, then add the buttermilk and egg and whisk until smooth. Pour it into a tall glass for easy battering. When the oil reaches 350°F, dip one dog into the batter to evenly coat it, giving the skewer a quarter twirl as you lift it out, so any excess batter drips off.
5. Holding it by the skewer as close to parallel to the oil as you can without maiming yourself, dip the dog in the oil and keep it there for 10 seconds, then carefully drop it into the oil.
6. Repeat — batter, dip, and drop — for two or three more dogs, depending on the size of your pot. You don’t want to overcrowd and you want a little space between each one. Fry the first batch, flipping them over halfway through (about 5 minutes) if they don’t flip themselves over and adjusting the heat to maintain the oil temperature, until the crust has a nice grocery-bag brown color and a cake tester or paring knife inserted into the batter (but not the dog) comes out clean and warm to the touch, 8 to 10 minutes. Move them to the baking sheet, pop in the oven to keep them warm, and fry the rest in batches, adding them to the baking sheet as they’re done. Serve with the mustard.

Reprinted with permission from Turkey and the Wolf by Mason Hereford with JJ Goode, copyright © 2022. Published by TenSpeed Press, a division of Penguin Random House, LLC.

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