Nothing beats the American Classics – when it comes to food, you know you are in for a treat when you or your personal chefs cook up a Chicago-Style Hot Dog. From the Windy City of Chicago comes this all American snack. Loaded with generations of tradition, it’s sure to be a fan favorite. Also known as the Chicago Dog or the Chicago Red Hot, be a part of the American culinary heritage at home, at a ball game, or anywhere else with this pastime snack.

To get started, make sure all the following ingredients are ready and set:

• 1 tablespoon chopped onion
• 1 all-beef hot dog
• 1 poppyseed hot dog bun
• 1 tablespoon yellow mustard
• 1 tablespoon sweet green pickle relish
• 4 tomato wedges
• 1 dill pickle spear
• 2 sport peppers
• 1 dash celery salt

Get some water in a pot and start it boiling. Once done, reduce the heat to a low and place the hot dog in the water – cooking it for a good five minutes or as well done as you would like it to be. Satisfied? Remove the hot dog and set this aside for the time being. Don’t empty the water just yet though – take a steamer basket, put it over the pot, and then steam the hot dog bun for some two minutes just to get it warm and soft. If you’d rather have it crispy and crunchy, a toaster would be a much better option.

Next, simply place the hot dog in the steamed bun, slicing along the middle of the latter. For the personal chef to get that Chicago-Style Hot Dog, it’s not simply as easy as that. The rest of the ingredients should be piled up in a particular order, namely: yellow mustard first along the linings of the bread and atop the hotdog, apply a preferred amount of sweet green pickle relish, dangle some sliced onions and some tomatoes wedges, the classical pickle spear, the sport peppers, and finally the celery salt. Take good care to put the tomatoes in between the top of the bun and the hot dog so you get the juicy bite all the way. While you’re at it, the pickle should be in between the hotdog bun and the hot dog.

Starting out as a simple delicacy that you can buy from street vendors in 1929 during the Great Depression, it became an instant hit with its ease of preparation and spendthrift production costs. Coming from Jewish entrepreneurs at the time, there are different variations out there today of course – but the original ones came from Chicago with the iconic giant hot dog food wagons patrolling the streets. Now, while some may prefer ketchup or some mayonnaise instead of mustard, try out a few of these first. Chicagoan loyalists and food aficionados alike all agree to stave off the ketchup as it spoils the flavor. You and your personal chef needs to know just what the Chicago-Style Hot Dog tastes on its own before adding any varying ingredients. It helps to preserve that All American Classical Taste.