Detroit Coney Dog

The Coney dog is Michigan’s hot dog, and Detroit’s is the best known: a natural-casing frank in a soft steamed bun, covered with a beanless, all-meat chili called Coney sauce, a stripe of yellow mustard and a heavy scatter of diced white onion. It is named after Coney Island in New York and comes from Greek and Macedonian immigrants in Michigan, who opened “Coney Island” lunch counters from the 1910s on — George Todoroff in Jackson, the Keros brothers’ American and Lafayette Coney Islands side by side on Lafayette Boulevard in downtown Detroit. The dog is a hot dog with a sauce; the sauce is the argument. Detroit’s is loose and wet, spooned on; Flint’s, sixty miles north, is a dry, crumbly topping of finely ground beef heart, made for Koegel franks. The family recipe card in this collection, Coney Sauce (Party Line Deli), is a ground-beef sauce simmered with tomato paste and onion, which puts it on the Detroit side of that line. I have not made this one yet; the build follows the Detroit Historical Society’s definition, and it is untested at this table.

Ingredients

• 8 natural-casing hot dogs (all beef or beef-and-pork; Michigan makers such as Dearborn or Koegel are the local standard)
• 8 soft hot dog buns
• 3 cups / 720 ml Coney sauce, hot
• 8 tsp yellow mustard
• 1 large white onion, finely diced (about 1½ cups)

Directions

Key ingredients

Mustard

1. In the collection: the sauce is Coney Sauce (Party Line Deli), made ahead — it keeps 5 days in the fridge and freezes well. The dog can be All-Beef Hot Dogs (American Frankfurters) in natural casing.
2. Heat the sauce: warm the Coney sauce gently in a covered pan, stirring, until it simmers. Mash it once more with a potato masher if it has set in the fridge; a Detroit sauce should be fine-textured and spoonable, not chunky.
3. Cook the dogs on the griddle: lay them on a flat-top or heavy skillet over medium-low heat with a film of oil and roll them every minute or two for 6–8 minutes, until the casing tightens, blisters lightly and the dog is hot through (165 °F / 74 °C). Low heat keeps the natural casing from splitting; the snap is half the point.
4. Steam the buns: 1 minute over simmering water, or wrapped in a damp towel in a low oven. Soft and warm, never toasted.
5. Build: dog in the bun; a generous ladle of Coney sauce along the whole length; a stripe of yellow mustard over the sauce; a heavy handful of diced white onion on top. In Detroit the order is sauce, mustard, onion.
6. Serve at once, with a fork if the sauce has been generous. A “loose” Coney is the sauce and onions on a bun without the dog.
7. Sibling recipe: the Chicago build on the same kind of frank is Chicago-Style Hot Dog.

Notes

Where this recipe came from — and what it isn’t. The definition is the Detroit Historical Society’s (Encyclopedia of Detroit, “Coney Dog”): a “beef frankfurter in natural casing, nestled in a soft, steamed bun” topped with “all meat, beanless chili, diced white onions, and yellow mustard”, and “a true Coney uses made-in-Michigan products such as Dearborn Sausage wieners.” The sauce is the family card already in the collection. Untested at this table.

About the sauce card. Coney Sauce (Party Line Deli) is filed under Mom’s Recipe Cards: 4 lb ground beef browned and mashed fine with a potato masher, caramelised Spanish onion, salt, pepper, garlic powder, a large handful of oregano, a can of tomato paste, hot water, Kitchen Bouquet, Worcestershire and butter, simmered an hour. The card does not say where Party Line Deli was. It is a ground-beef sauce with tomato and simmering liquid — a wet sauce — which is the Detroit style; it contains no beef heart and is nothing like Flint’s dry topping.

Where the Coney came from. The founding years are disputed. The Detroit Historical Society gives Todoroff’s Original Coney Island in Jackson as 1914, American Coney Island as 1917 (Gust Keros) and Lafayette Coney Island as 1924 (William Keros), and those are the dates the restaurants claim. A reading of the Detroit city directories puts Lafayette at 1923 and American at 1936, after a split between the brothers. All agree that Greek and Macedonian immigrants built the Michigan Coney, that the name borrowed New York’s Coney Island as shorthand for a hot dog, and that no single inventor can be documented. Outside Michigan the same chili dog is called a “Michigan” in upstate New York and Vermont.

Detroit against Flint. Detroit: natural-casing beef or beef-and-pork frank, wet beanless sauce, mustard, onion. Flint: a Koegel frank (the Koegel Coney was developed for Flint’s Coney counters, credited to the Macedonian restaurateur Simion Brayan working with the butcher), under a dry, crumbly topping built on finely ground beef heart; Abbott’s Meat still makes the base developed in 1924 for Flint Original Coney Island, and Angelo’s (1949) is the best-known Flint counter. Jackson’s sauce is said to have switched to beef heart during wartime beef rationing. Wikipedia describes the Detroit sauce as beef-heart based too, so the clearest difference is wet against dry, not heart against ground beef.

Variations. Flint-style topping, sketched: brown 1 lb / 450 g finely ground beef heart (or 80/20 beef ground twice) with a small grated onion in its own fat until dry and crumbly; season with 1 Tbsp chili powder, 1 tsp paprika, ½ tsp cumin, salt and pepper; add only enough water to bind, and cook it off. It should sprinkle, not pour. This sketch is untested. Jackson-style sits between the two.

Sourcing and gear. Dearborn Sausage and Koegel franks are sold in Michigan groceries; any natural-casing frank works elsewhere. A flat griddle or a heavy skillet.

Still open. Where Party Line Deli was. Which directory reading of the Keros dates is right.

Read more on the site. American Regional