The Buffalo New York Cookbook by Arthur Bovino

Author:Arthur Bovino
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Countryman Press
Published: 2018-03-16T16:00:00+00:00

Hot Diggity!

Theodore Spiro Liaros came from Greece to Buffalo in 1912, and started on his path to the American dream by selling popcorn and peanuts from a box around his neck. He started a lunch wagon and when the Peace Bridge (built to connect with Canada over Lake Erie) was completed in 1927, he bought a construction shack nearby and started selling hot dogs cooked on a flat grill. In 1948, he opened Ted’s on Shirley Drive, and soon after Ted’s son suggested they cook over charcoal. “Somewhere around 1950, they switched,” Ted’s president (and Theodore’s granddaughter) Thecly Liaros Ortolani told me. “And it’s ironic, because that’s what differentiates us now, everything cooked over charcoal.”

The original Ted’s closed in 1969, but the tradition continues, complete with Theodore’s “Famous Hot Chili Sauce,” a secret recipe. For the uninitiated, this isn’t the chili for a chili dog, or the meat sauce typical to Greek hot dogs or Coney dogs, but a sweet-spicy, ketchup-based condiment.

Thecly says her grandfather’s recipe is locked in a safe like the original formula for Coca-Cola. He supposedly brought it with him from Greece in 1912, and passed it down to his sons, Spiro and Peter. In 1905, Heinz was selling five million bottles of ketchup, so it’s possible the original recipe did use ketchup. There’s also folklore that one of Liaros’s vendors had a wife who made it. Either way, the ingredients are listed on the bottle (sold online), Thecly confirmed there’s ketchup in it, and it is fun to try to replicate.

While this recipe might not be a dead ringer, it comes close enough and tastes good regardless. You can keep what you don’t use in the fridge for a few weeks, if there’s any left. If you’re going to be authentic, order Sahlen’s hot dogs online in advance. At Ted’s, they shoot for 15 minutes over charcoal, during which the dogs are blackened, poked (to control where the split happens and to keep the dogs straight, so you can roll them), coddled, and turned until they’re browned in most places.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.