The new product to test is Smart Dogs. I knew this was going to be a tough sell, as I'm really picky about my hot dogs. My favorite is the Schweigert All Beef Wieners (hee hee - wieners!) with natural casing, in case anyone wanted to know. For me, hot dogs are serious business. So I went in to this with pretty low expectations.
First off, the package says you can either boil them or microwave them. My usual MO is to microwave my hot dogs ("until they scream" - my kitchen is a fun place), so that's what I did. Since my plan was to slice them up and mix them into some macaroni and cheese (yum!), I took 3 dogs out of the package and threw them onto a plate. The package said 30 seconds per dog, but my microwave is pretty buff, so I went with one minute total.
Before I get to what happened there, I must describe my first impressions of this item. As soon as I tore open the package, I encountered a rather unpleasant odor. One which I'm sure I must get used to, if I'm going to be using lots of soy-based products. It kind of smelled like soy sauce, which really makes sense. (I later smelled a regular hot dog - to be fair, it also smelled weird, but it got better after I cooked it)
Okay - after a minute in the microwave, the bottoms of the dogs had sort of blistered, in a rather unappealing way, but this is sort of part of the microwaved hot dogs experience, so I went ahead. It still smelled like it did right out of the package, which was a little disappointing. They were very hot, and I used my knife to cut off a chunk. It was super rubbery, and actually took two tries to get through the top part of the skin. Once I got a bite-sized chunk separated from the rest of the dog, I took a good look at it. It was orange. Very orange. In discussions following this experience, I was reminded that the pink of standard hot dogs is chemically enhanced, but still... couldn't they have worked a little harder to get that nice chemically pink in these? Orange! I steeled myself and popped it into my mouth.
The experience:
Texture - Very rubbery, which didn't improve during the chewing.
Flavor - It tasted like it smelled, kind of soy-sauce-ish
I fed a piece to my wife as well, and she agreed with the foulness of this experience. Luckily, we had a regular beef hot dog in the fridge, so our dinner wasn't completely ruined, but we threw out the Smart Dogs. Next time, I will try boiling them to see if that improves the experience.
Final grade for this attempt: F
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6 comments:
I'm not even certain exactly how to classify the flavor of these hot dogs... it's like they were drenched in fake hickory flavor or something similar. Pretty awful!
with a hefty dose of shame, I have to admit that I'm never without a pack of these in my freezer. I prep them by cutting a few little nicks into the dogs on each side, plopping them on a paper towel, with a nother paper towel on top, and nuking for about 20 seconds. They really don't need much time and will only get more rubbery the more they cook. you just want em warm. I like them on a toasted hot dog bun covered with mustard and relish, or sliced up in vegan mac n cheese (make sure to coat em thoroughly with the sauce, though)
They're worthless on they're own, but perfectly fine as filler in other treats where you can drown em out with condiments.
You didn't even read the directions, dumbass.
You were supposed to cut slits in them and you obviously overcooked them.
It's not their fault they tasyed bad, it was yours.
If you were doing an experiment with dangerous chemicals would you kind of follow the directions? Skip directions? Add more/less or which chemicals you needed?
No, I didn't think so.
So before you write such an uneducated review, think first if you followed the directions.
*tasted
Hey there, Anonymous. Few thoughts for you: First off, rude! I did read the directions - in fact, I quoted them in my review. And cutting slits would not have made them not taste like ass. I'm sorry. A slit in a fake meat hot dog just doesn't have that much power.
Second, how is cooking the same as "doing an experiment with dangerous chemicals"? Have you ever cooked before? Have you ever watched a chef taste something, add a little salt, taste again? Did the directions say to do that? No - real cooks don't rely on directions. Sometimes, a little intuition will suffice.
Finally, if you read a little farther into the blog, I did a second attempt with these dogs, followed the directions (and boiled them this time) and they still managed to be gross. So I take none of the blame.
When you are eating a packaged and not fresh product you don't want to just make up your own directions. Since you failed to do that the first time, I haighly doubt you did it the second.
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