All American Recipes: Hot Dogs and Onion Rings

What better excuse to indulge in treats from our friends across the pond than American football? With the final big game just around the corner and everyone planning a late night party, we thought we'd share two easy but delicious recipes to keep you and your friends' spirits high!

We like to call these posh dogs as we have used pork and herb sausages instead of frankfurters but the contents are completely up to you, they can be customised to suit you and your guests.

• Hot dog buns
• Sausages
• Salad
• Red onion, finely sliced
• A selection of condiments - we chose French mustard (classic) and chilli mayo

1. Preheat the oven to 180 degrees
2. While the oven is heating up, it's time to prepare your condiments! We grabbed the American classic French mustard and whipped up some chilli mayo by combining mayonnaise, chopped red chillies, paprika and tomato sauce.
3. Cook the sausages under the grill until cooked thoroughly, this should take around 25 minutes
4. As the sausages cook, prepare your salad and thinly slice the onion
5. Once the sausages are cooked, slice the buns and spread a little mustard or mayo on the bread. Then add the sausages and pile high with salad, onion and condiments!

These are perfect for sharing with friends as you can just put together all the ingredients and they can create their own posh dogs, meaning you won't have to spend all your time in the kitchen, perfect.

Onion rings are deceptively easy to make, these bad boys have just three ingredients (as well as oil of course) and take just 15 minutes to make. This recipe makes around 30 onion rings so double up if you're having a big party!

• 1 Large Onion (we went for red but white works just as well)
• 150g self raising flour
• 180ml sparkling water
• Vegetable Oil

1. Slice the onion into rings around 1/2 a cm wide and separate into rings
2. Preheat the oil in a pan, but make sure not to fill it more than a third of the way as it gets very hot
3. While the oil heats up, whisk together the flour and sparkling water in a medium size bowl to make the batter. Season with any flavours you like, we chose salt and pepper but if try chilli powder for an extra kick
4. Test if the oil is hot enough by dropping a small amount of batter into it, if it sizzles and turns golden, the oil is ready! Dip an onion ring into the batter and place in the oil, be extra careful with this. Repeat until the pan is full of onion rings sizzling way.
5. Once the rings have cooked for around 30 seconds, use a fork to flip them over and cook for a further 30 seconds.
6. Once cooked, remove the rings from the oil with a slotted spoon and place on a plate covered with kitchen roll to soak up excess oil. Serve immediately and enjoy!
7. Make sure to let the oil cool completely before disposing of it.

Will you be trying out these recipes? Let us know if you do by sending us a tweet!