Boiling the dogs is hot dog 101. While steaming or grilling might be better, boiling works and doesn’t exactly ruin the dogs, it gets them pleasantly, evenly, hot.
I’m surprised microwaving works, I’d think you’d have the ends dried up and the middle lukewarm.
I had them boiled in my formative years. Nowadays I air-fry dogs for 6 minutes, the last minute with the bun over the top.
The best way though is over a campfire with a stick.
Is that what you call a wire coat hanger?
Same here. Or on rare occasion, on a stick over a campfire, but that was less “cooking” and more “shit you do while camping”.
Also the same! Unless I’m in a really big hurry.
Bonus with the toaster oven is that I can also toast the bun if I feel like it at the same time.
They worked fine, but the first bite from each end had an ozoney, burnt flesh taste.
Likewise. Dad was an Armour employee so that tended to be our hot dog brand but I grew to really dislike boiled dogs, unless from a vendor’s cart. A Presto Hot Dogger or similar showed up in the house at some point and became our standard cooking device until moving to a house which had a microwave.
Leave 'em in too long and they will end up close to that. These days, I typically put precooked bratwurst in the microwave, wrapped in a paper towel to keep grease from coating the microwave’s walls.
Uncooked bratwurst goes in the air fryer.
I had to endure them as a kid in the the 1960s and 1970s and they were just awful 
As many others have noted here so far, it was typical “just get something on the table” indifference made by not exactly worldly mothers, aunts, grands who were as far removed from being “foodies” as could be.
Wife (raised in MI, MA and Ireland; one parent from NJ, the other from MO) prefers to boil them. My usual method is to nuke them after stabbing them two or three times with a fork.
Another use for a waffle maker. Split a couple lengthwise, lay them out, close, monitor with your nose. I do hash browns in the waffle maker too.
Growing up in the 70s I was usually asked whether I wanted it boiled, broiled or fried. Boiled and broiled were served on a bun, fried was split down the middle and served on whatever bread I chose. I have a certain fondness for dirty water dogs, but even today how I cook them depends on my mood (except the air fryer has taken the place of the broiler), which is the same way I choose my toppings and condiments.
When I was a poor, busted college student there were times when funds were especially tough. At those times we would sometimes boil hotdogs for lunch, save the water they were boiled in, and have weenie water soup for supper. Usually with prepackaged saltine crackers from the local salad bar. You could also add a few ketchup packets to the pot if you wanted to get all fancy and sh*t.
Boiling made sense when you were making an entire package of hot dogs to feed 3 or 4 kids. No one wanted to wait in line for the microwave.
Grilling was popular at cookouts where a package would be made next to the burgers, chicken or steaks. It could be given to the kids while the “real” food was finishing up.
And potato chips were mandatory. And no one argued over mustard vs ketchep, many kids used both. And of course you washed it down with real Coke. That was the America of my day!
With pine floats? (I.e. toothpicks floating in the water)
I forget where that joke is from (“we’re having weenie water soup with pine floats!”).
I did this and found it wasn’t very effective. Basically it cooked the ends of the sausage near the terminal and left the middle part fairly cold.
To echo everybody else, boiled was how we did it growing up, and I never realized there was another way until I was an adult and realized that these are already cooked and just need heating. Microwave is quick and easy, a grill gives them a bit of browning if you like that, a steamer is nice too. Or just boil it up, there’s nothing wrong with it if you don’t mind the wait.
I think boiling and / or steaming is traditionally how certain kinds of sausage are prepared in Germany. Can our German Dopers confirm this? I’m wondering if it’s at least partly a “This is how it was done in the Old Country” thing that’s now been mostly forgotten in America.
On a trip to Germany ~20 years ago I ordered some sort of hotdog-like sausage at a cafe and it was served to me in a bowl of hot water. Noticing my confusion, the waiter told me that I was suppose to take it out of the water and put it on a plate to eat it. From what I gathered, it’s traditional for certain sausages to be served in a bowl of the cooking water to keep them warm, or something like that. Again, it would be nice to hear from our German Dopers to know if I got that right.
I think a lot of traditional German and eastern European sausages should be braised (if not boiled). Some of them have fairly thick natural casings that will get tough if not cooked in a liquid.
I almost started a thread titled Boiled Bratwurst?!
… but then I saw this:
So I’ll just say that sometimes the “way of the old country” ain’t the best. My Swiss father would boil a cauldron of beer on the stove, and toss in bratwurst from the local butcher. Then, after all the oils and juices would leech out into the water, he’d slap the now-fully-cooked brats on the grill, where all the remaining oils would leak out onto the coals, starting many little grease fires. Then the burnt brats would be inserted into huge potato buns.
Now that I’m a big boy and can ignore Ol’ Dad, I finally get to enjoy one of the peak joys of life: JUICY BRATWURST!
I still start a big pot (of sliced onions, browning them in butter), then adding the beer*. But this is mostly for the way it makes the house smell.
*(2 bottles of middling beer in the pot, and 1 bottle of good stuff in the chef while grilling).
But I only boil the brats a few minutes, then do most of the cooking on the grill (and I DON’T poke the brats with a fork to release all the juices - and start fires - like Dad did).
I take the pot o’ beer outside to place the brats in as they’re done (10-15 min. total for uncooked, less for pre-cooked).
I still use thick “brat buns”, but I split ‘em, spray them with butter/margarine/EVOO, and toast them on the grill at the end of the brats’ tenure.
Then people pick out brats and onions with tongs and nest them in the crispy buns. I serve condiments, but tell people to try a bite first, because I find these brats are so tasty that nothing’s needed.
Now, these are good store-bought (Johnsonville is our favorite), or homemade from a great meat market (in Chicago: Gene’s Sausage Shop, Lincoln Square; or in the Madison area: Ken’s Meats; in Milwaukee: Bunzel’s ).
About 50 years ago, I worked as a bartender for a nice little beer and wine bar. We offered brats simmered in beer as a snack. I can’t recall what we served with them, but they weren’t served in buns. They were served with mustard, though. They were very popular, and with good reason. They were very flavorful.
I’ve never wasted used beer with hot dogs, though, so I don’t know if that would improve them. I never cared for them boiled in water.
Our dogs were steamed growing up … and bought at either Wolfie’s or more commonly Flukies!
Hot dogs also came out to be cooked on sticks over a campfire.
Mom boiled the hot dogs until we were old enough to want a little texture, and then fried them in a pan, unless we had the grill going.
In the 90s, I worked in one of SW CT’s most famous Hot Dog stands, where we deep-fried the dogs, and then let them finish on the grill, creating an excellent crunch. We also buttered the insides of the rolls, and did them on the grill with the open side down.