Spicy mango sweet and sour dogs

Mango is in season! 

This is probably one of the most delicious hotdogs I have ever made. Generally my hot dog grilling consists of sausages, honey, bbq sauce and toppings. Since its mango month I had to attempt to make a delicious mango condiment. This wasn’t exactly the condiment I had planned but it worked out just beautifully all the same.

If you asked me where this recipe came from, I would probably say thin air. However when I seriously think about it, I would say a series of fortunate or unfortunate events led to the light bulb that went off in my brain for this recipe. Here they are, in the order they happened.

1. I decided to do mango for the theme of the month, at the same time, a bad dog sausage cart opened in Mandeville. My fiancée adores hot dogs, and while the ones on the cart are tasty, I just felt like gourmet hotdogs with unique toppings are just so much more epic. So I decided I wanted to make him some delicious hotdogs just out of love.
2. Then my lazy kicks in, and I figure since I’m making hotdogs why not try to incorporate the mango in some way (even though he does not like mango). That’s when the Honey mango mustard was born, and I did make it (see pic below)  however I used way too much brown mustard seeds , and ice cold water (big mistake) the mustard was SUPER SPICY!! I mean wasabi/horseradish spicy. At first I wasn’t bothered because I know that mustard's lose their kick over time, and I made it two days in advance just to make sure. Needless to say this one did not mellow out. You couldn’t even taste the mango or the honey, so I planned to redo the recipe using warm water and yellow mustard only
3. Then, my cousin, who is a very important taste tester because she is a picky eater realizes that same weekend, she is allergic to mustard…Plan B
4. Let go for a mango, ketchup/BBQ  sauce with a little spice kinda sauce. Because at this point that’s all I had. 

Honey Mango Mustard....still in the works

So that’s what I did, the mustard was shelved so I went for the ketchup. I would have made a tomato paste from scratch; however at that point because I didn’t plan for ketchup, we didn’t even have any tomatoes. So I had to use my beloved Heinz which I’m glad I did. The sauce is perfect, super easy, sweet and sour with a little spice, the mango and the honey add a lovely sweetness that balance the saltines from the sausages. This is my new go too recipe for the bbq. I can guarantee you everyone will love it.

Ingredients  (printable recipe)

For the sauce

½ cup fresh mango puree

½ cup ketchup

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon vinegar

¼ teaspoon scotch bonnet   pepper minced

1 garlic clove shredded

Other

4 large sausages

4 toasted hotdog buns

½ cup grilled onion

½ cup grilled red pepper slices

Instructions

• Combine all the ingredients in a pot and bring so a low simmer
• Allow it to cook while using a fork or the back of a spoon to press out any chunks of mango
• Once its thick and pasty remove from the heat
• I used Bad dawg sausages generally I like to boil them for 5 minutes before grilling, not all sausages need this step
• On a hot grill, grill the onions and peppers, once charred slice and shop and set aside
• Place the sausages on the hot grill and allow them to get some grill marks on all sides before basting
• Baste 2 to 3 times with the mango sauce while turning to make sure the sauce gets caramelized on the sausage this stage should take another 5 minutes on med/hi heat
• In a pan warm some butter and toast the buns
• Serve warm by immediately placing the grilled sausage with some extra sauce, grilled onions and peppers in the toasted bun

Xoxo Greedygirl