Hot dogs, and prawn and pork toasts: Max Halley’s World Cup sausage party – recipes

Both of these sausage-based delights are great for a gathering, can be prepared in advance and go really, really well with ice-cold beers. God bless the sausage. Whether your team is winning, losing, embarrassing or delighting, everyone will consider you the Cristiano Ronaldo of half-time snacks if you bang either of these out. The prawn and sausage toasts can be made in advance and kept in the fridge with greaseproof paper between the slices, then you just need to fry them when you want them. Similarly with the hotdogs: prep everything in advance, then, when the whistle goes, boil the sausages, steam the buns and get stuck in.

Reuben(esque) hot dogs (pictured top)

I own a brilliant one, but Katz’s Deli in New York is surely everyone’s desert island sandwich shop. This hot dog is a little piece of heaven, and is eaten at my house quite often while we sit around reminiscing about Katz’s extraordinary sarnies. Your local Polish shop (or mine, at least) is a great place to get less industrial (sometimes even raw or old-smoked) hot dog-appropriate sausages – much better than you might get in the supermarket.

Prep 10 min
Cook 20 min
Makes 2

2 thumb-thick smoked sausages, such as kielbasa myśliwska or frankfurters
2 hot dog buns of your choice, split open lengthways
1 pinch caraway seeds
1 small pinch fine sea salt
60g sauerkraut (drained weight – if yours has lots of liquid, let it drain in a colander for 30 minutes first)
2 tbsp very finely chopped onion

For the pangrattato

4 tbsp olive oil
20g fresh sourdough breadcrumbs

For the Russian dressing
1 tbsp tomato ketchup
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 heaped tbsp coarsely grated or finely chopped gherkins, or sweet dill pickles
¼ tsp Worcestershire sauce
½ tsp white-wine vinegar
3 good schploofs Tabasco

First, make the pangrattato. Put the olive oil in a small saucepan on a medium heat, fry the breadcrumbs for about five minutes, turning them often, until deep golden brown, then drain on kitchen paper.

Mix all the ingredients for the Russian dressing in a bowl, then taste and adjust as you see fit.

In a saucepan that is at least as wide as the sausages are long, bring 2½cm water to a boil. Throw in the sausages and boil for five minutes. If you have a metal colander, sieve or vegetable steamer basket, pop it on top of the hot dog pan while they’re boiling, throw in the buns and steam briefly until soft. (Skip this step if you can’t be bothered, but I regret it when I don’t.)

Put the caraway seeds and salt in a mortar and grind to a powder.

Lay a hot sausage in each bun’s crevice and cover it in Russian dressing. Roll the sausages over in the crevice, then add a little more sauce. Cover in kraut, sprinkle on the raw onion, then some caraway powder and, finally, the pangrattato. Bloody good, isn’t it?