Steamed Dogs & Buns From Wife's New Veggie Steamer

My wife ordered this veggie steamer from QVC 2 weeks ago

Cook's Essentials Stainless Steel 2-Tier Mini Steamer w/Timer

and I had this brainstorm idea to see how it would cook up my favorite all beef dogs and steam the buns.  The verdict - They were Awesome!

Perfectly cooked in less than 8 minutes, hot, juicy & plump with absolutely no loss of flavor from soaking in hot water.  Add the buns half-way through the cooking process and the meat and buns will be perfectly cooked and ready together.  So far I've used only all beef dogs with my favorite Hebrew Nationals but I'm going to try several others and another favorite of mine "Kogel Vienna's and I also heard GFS will be adding Kent Meats new "Angus Beef" dogs soon,

If you're a fan of the dog like me you have to try steaming.  Personally I will never return to the "dirty water" method of cooking them again.

The only problem I can forsee is your wife may decide to add steamed broccoli to the menu on hot dog night!

 

Not quite on topic, but I recently discovered Gwaltney All Beef weiners. The're the best and are available at Walmart and Krogers (at least in my area, Eastern KY).

ShenB


My wife ordered this veggie steamer from QVC 2 weeks ago

Cook's Essentials Stainless Steel 2-Tier Mini Steamer w/Timer

and I had this brainstorm idea to see how it would cook up my favorite all beef dogs and steam the buns.  The verdict - They were Awesome!

Perfectly cooked in less than 8 minutes, hot, juicy & plump with absolutely no loss of flavor from soaking in hot water.  Add the buns half-way through the cooking process and the meat and buns will be perfectly cooked and ready together.  So far I've used only all beef dogs with my favorite Hebrew Nationals but I'm going to try several others and another favorite of mine "Kogel Vienna's and I also heard GFS will be adding Kent Meats new "Angus Beef" dogs soon,

If you're a fan of the dog like me you have to try steaming.  Personally I will never return to the "dirty water" method of cooking them again.

The only problem I can forsee is your wife may decide to add steamed broccoli to the menu on hot dog night!

WHY IS THIS POST BEING FLAGGED????

how many buns do you think this thing will hold?
how many hopt dogs?
looks pretty nice..

I have seen another post flagged today for no known reason. Maybe Steven needs to be contacted and ask him why.


Dennis in Cary

I didn't flag it.  (In fact I am not sure I know how to flag one.)  But I suspect whoever flagged this probably felt it should have been posted in the Recipe & Cooking Techniques forum instead of in this one.

I use and enjoy hot dogs prepped the same way using stackable bamboo steam baskets. Been steaming many food items for more than 20 years. Steaming is an excellent method to bring out the natural goodness.

About how long do you steam the hotdogs ??

Thanks

John

In the bamboo probably about 12 minute. After that turn to simmer and they hold well for an hour plus for leisure "grazing". I set up a "hotdog bar" with lots of condiments available for building ones own dog. Careful steaming buns. They require very little time, otherwise they become soggy.

Reviews of the item at the QVC site are mixed; some folks love it, others feel it is cheaply made and they had problems with it leaking. I can see where it would be good to have for cooking an entire meal's worth of vegetables outside of the microwave oven; it would be a lot quicker, and eveything would get done at the same time.

The price is right; $21. For me personally, I think I'm going to take ShenB's advice as far as steaming my dogs, but I'll use my stove top; I don't want to add another stand-alone electronic cooking device to an already crowded kitchen.

My guess is that it's flagged as possible spam. I dunno, my opinion is that it's a legitimate enthusiastic recommendation. We all like to know about stuff that works, we all like to share a nice find.

Mosca


Reviews of the item at the QVC site are mixed; some folks love it, others feel it is cheaply made and they had problems with it leaking. I can see where it would be good to have for cooking an entire meal's worth of vegetables outside of the microwave oven; it would be a lot quicker, and eveything would get done at the same time.

The price is right; $21. For me personally, I think I'm going to take ShenB's advice as far as steaming my dogs, but I'll use my stove top; I don't want to add another stand-alone electronic cooking device to an already crowded kitchen.

My guess is that it's flagged as possible spam. I dunno, my opinion is that it's a legitimate enthusiastic recommendation. We all like to know about stuff that works, we all like to share a nice find.

This QVC "Cooks Essentials" unit has a 30 minute timer built in.  I find that  10-12 minutes for the dogs and 2-3 minutes for the buns works quite well.  They will hold for longer periods because they aren't soaking in hot water so the great smokey-garlic flavor of (especially all beef) dogs stays in the meat.  I've also used Kogel's natural casing( beef/pork blend) "Viennas" in the unit and haven't had any bursting like they easily do soaking in very hot water.  We used it yesterday and my daughter brought her favorite natural casing Costco gourmet low-fat Chicken-Apple-Gouda dogs and even though they were frozen they cooked fully in less than 15 minutes and yes, they were delicious (but I'm not ever giving up my all beef dogs).

As far as the cheapness of the steamer, sure the trays and lids are a thin styrene plastic and would probably easily break if dropped on the floor and the lids can be finicky to fully seat but heck the darn thing was only $14 and some change.  When my wife saw it come on QVC that Sunday night with an intro price of less than $15 with free shipping she dialed right in and while she was still on the phone with them they announced on the screen that all 10,000 they had in stock had sold in less than 10 minutes time.  Hmmm $15 x 10,000 = $300,000 - Wish I had the ability to bring in money like that.

One caution is to make sure the water resevoir dosen't run dry or it can overheat the imersion heater. And as for the leaking don't fill the resevoir above the top line as it boils vigorously and will bubble over the rim even with the tray properly seated if it has been over filled.  Storing it isn't a problem.  Stow the cord in the resevoir and the two baskets, stacking ring and lid flip and will nest over the stainless steel base so its only about 6" high overall.

Hot dogs out of a steamer are pretty darn good. I just may have to get mine up from the basement.

Shen, you and I operate from the same basics although using different utensils. Yours the electric, mine the bamboo stackables. If it works, don't fix it!

Rouxdog,
I'm curious as to why most dog carts use the dirty water method for cooking and holding dogs.  Seems to me steaming would be preferable and the flavor wouldn't leech out of the dog to be carried away in the water.

Any cart operators who read this care to answer?  Do dogs hold well in a steam compartment?

bamboo steamers work very well for steaming the buns, since moisture doesn't condense on the wood and drip onto the bread. i have an inexpensive 2-tier aluminum steamer that i found at the local cash & carry. my bamboo steamer fits perfectly in place of the aluminum lid, i put the dogs in the lower aluminum trays and the buns in the upper bamboo ones. i start the dogs first, after 5 minutes or so i add the bamboo trays and lid and let it go for another 3-5 minutes.