The Rolf's Mini-Dog Popper (A Worthy Concept With Room for Improvement)

After a trip to Rolf's Pork Store for some mini-hotdogs bratwurst, whitewurst, mustard, bacon, and Westpahlian schinken a wonderful thing occurred to me. Whilst looking at a glorious mini-dog I realized that it was just about the right size to be enrobed in a large jalapeno, popper style.

Being unskilled in general popper-ology I muddled through the process fairly uninformed in how to manufacture the little suckers. I pretty much sliced the jalapenos down the middle, veined and seeded, spread in a little "spread cheese" (we are talking poppers here, let us not put on airs), and wrapped in some of Rolf's fine bacon. Thusly-



I baked them in the oven at 350 for 25 minutes and then finished on the grill. I was a little disappointed with the outcome. All of the cheese drooled out the sides and the hot dog poppers were, somewhat inexplicably, kind of bland. Good crunchy bacon, good hot dog, spicy jalapeno, but missing was a certain "zestyness" that one has come to expect from a popper. I think I will make these again using either a more copious amount of cheese (possibly pimiento cheese next time) inside. Maybe our indigenous hot dog sauce could save the snack, but that might be over gilding the lily.

If this doesn't work, I might have to stray into the strange world of dippin' sauces.... I don't know though, I don't think I can live at that speed....