Vegetarian Hot dog (with a Kidney Beans Sausage)

Who says vegetarians can’t eat hot dogs?! :-D I was watching an episode of Friends & I saw Joey eat a hot dog. And even though I knew it had some dead-stuff, I couldn’t help admiring the sausage! :-P I also love watching Food-Food channel. I had seen this recipe on Firangi Tadka. I didn’t know the exact ingredients, but I did a decent job of making the hot dogs! :-) Also, this one is full of proteins because of the kidney beans (Rajma) So eat it guilt free! ;-D

Ingredients- (makes 4 hot dogs)

For the veggie sausage:

Kidney Beans – 1 cup (I put 4 palm-fuls)

Potato – 2 medium sized

Tofu – 50-80 grams (optional) [[Use cottage cheese as alternative]]

Paprika – 3 teaspoons

Pepper Powder – 1 teaspoon

Salt – as per taste – 1 teaspoon

Cilantro – chopped – 2 tablespoons (optional)

Others:

Hot Dog Buns

Tomato Ketchup

Mustard Sauce (optional)

Tomato Slices

Onion Slices

Cabbage / Lettuce leaves

Method –

STEP 1: Soak the Kidney beans in water overnight. (For around 6 hours)

STEP 2: Boil the Kidney beans (with a little bit of salt) to make them soft & mashable! :-) (In a cooker, microwave etc.)

STEP 3: Completely filter the water from the kidney beans. Use a clean cloth or towel to remove some excess water from the kidney beans.

STEP 4: Boil, peel & mash the potatoes. (& also mash the tofu if you are using it)

STEP 5: In a large mixing bowl, mash the kidney beans with your hands. Don’t use a blender. We just need to mash the beans roughly.

STEP 6: Add the mashed potatoes & mashed tofu to it & mix well.

STEP 7: Add the chopped cilantro, green chilis,

Salt

Paprika

Pepper powder

Bread Crumbs

STEP 8: Mix everything well. Taste and adjust the spices. If the mixture is sticky or doesn’t seem thick enough, add more bread crumbs.

STEP 9: Divide the mixture to large balls.

STEP 10: Take a part of the mixture on a flat surface.

STEP 11: Imagine how a sausage looks like. Slowly, start rolling the dough evenly as if it were a rolling pin. 

STEP 12: Make adjustments & your final veggie sausage should look like this –

STEP 13: Again, coat them with very little bread crumbs.

STEP 14: You can DEEP FRY these sausages. But I didn’t. Heat the oil on a flat pan.

STEP 15: Very gently, place 1 or 2 sausages on the pan. Let it cook on one side on medium heat for about 3-4 minutes or until it is crisp.

STEP 16: Then gently, with the help of a spoon, turn the sausage so that the other side gets cooker. Again, on medium heat for 3-4 minutes. Repeat the same in all for sides. You have to be careful and give support to the sausages while the smaller side is cooking coz they easily disintegrate!

STEP 17: Remove them on a tissue paper. There you go! Your vegetarian sausages are ready! :-)

Making the hot dog –

STEP 1: If the bun is not fresh, you may want to warm it a little bit to make it soft.

STEP 2: Cut the bun into 2 halves.

STEP 3: Apply butter (optional) and tomato sauce generously on the lower half.

STEP 4: Place the sausage we prepared above on the lower half.

STEP 5: If you want, add mustard sauce too. But we don’t like it so we skipped. Also, you could arrange slices of tomatoes, onions, lettuce leaves here.

STEP 6: I also added some more paprika on top of the sausage to give it some extra hotness! ;-)

STEP 7: Apply sauce on the other half of the bun.

STEP 8: Close the lower half with the other half of the bun.

That’s it. Enjoy! :-)