Hot Dog! Let's Hear It For 'Chicago-Style' Tube Steaks

There are over 1,800 "Hot Dog Joints" in the Chicago metropolitan area... more than all the McDonalds, Burger Kings and Wendy's outlets combined. One of the proud Morton Grove examples of this genre is Nicky Nolo's, located at 9402 Waukegan Rd.

Nick Nolo and his chef Brian Miller have quite the culinary resume. Nick owned and operated two pizzerias in the Carribean before locating in Morton Grove, while Brian has taught cooking and been in catering for over 20 years.

The Chicago-style dog that is served at Nicky Nolo's got its start in 1929 when greengrocer Jake Drexler, who had a vegetable stand in the old Chicago Maxwell Street Market, decided that his son, Abe Drexler, needed an occupation. Jake converted the family vegetable stand into a hot dog stand and created the "Chicago-style" dog by using the fresh produce to dress up the sandwich. Thus, Abe, "Flukey" Drexler began peddling the "Depression sandwich" for a price of five cents each, and a Chicago tradition was born.

The two most critical parts of a "Chicago dog" are the sausage and the bun. Traditionally, "Chicago-style" hot dogs are served on a MaryAnn or Rosens high-gluten, (to hold up to the steam warming), poppyseed bun. Wimpy buns do not make for great "Chicago-style" hot dogs. The banquet on a bun requires a fine frankfurter at its core. That means a snappy, Kosher-style beef hot dog. Snap is that distinctive bite that comes from a natural casing hot dog rather than a skinless frank. The natural casing helps give the dog that essential "snap" and burst of flavorful juicyness when you bite in.

A Maxwell Street Polish consists of a grilled or fried length of Polish sausage topped with grilled onions and yellow mustard and optional sport peppers, served on a bun. The meal traces its origins to Chicago's Maxwell Street Market, and has been called one of "the classic foods synonymous with Chicago."

The "Maxwell Street Polish" s widely said to have been created by Jimmy Stefanovic, a Macedonian immigrant, who took over his aunt and uncle's hot dog stand in 1939 (now called Jim's Original) located at Maxwell and Halsted in Chicago's old Maxwell Street market district.

The main feature of the sandwich is the sausage, which is widely available in grocery and specialty retail stores throughout the Chicago area. It is typically marketed as the 'Maxwell Street' variety, which is a Chicago-specific variation of kielbasa distinguished by it being typically more seasoned and made from a combination of both beef and pork. The two largest manufacturers of this particular style of Polish sausage in Chicago are Vienna Beef and Bobak's Sausage Company.

Arguably, the best "Kosher-style" beef hot dogs come from Vienna Beef or Red Hot Chicago, two companies that are run by descendants of the original Ladny-Reichl families that introduced hotdogs to Chicago on pushcarts during the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in the 1890's.

Another interesting story is the advent of skinless hot dogs in Chicago and how you can tell by looking if a wiener is skinless or natural casing.

A "skinless" hot dog has a plastic casing applied during manufacture that is tripped off in the final process, leaving the wiener with a dimple on both ends. A natural casing hot dog, (usually made from sheeps' intestines in the case of smaller sausages), is twisted or tied when the sausages are stuffed, leaving the "tube steak" with a small knot or protrusion on both ends. Therefore; hot dogs have two "navels", (one on each end), if it has "innies" it's a skinless... "outies" are natural casing.

To see the creation of a true "Chicago-style" hot dog, served on a MaryAnn poppyseed bun and dressed with the traditional yellow mustard, chopped white onion, electric-green pickle relish, sliced tomato, new dill pickle slice, sport peppers and a shake of celery salt, (as well as a traditional "Maxwell Street Polish", a "Texas Burger" and other Nicky Nolo's specialties, watch the Nicky Nolo's episode on MGTV "Table for Two" currently running on Comcast cable channel 6; or UVerse channel 99 in morton grove, or on the Morton Grove YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOfBFls8Puk&list=UU1l6enhk3oDaUiflUjEwQaA&index=1&feature=plcp