Pigs in a blanket (PIB) ピッグインブランケット

When we got steaks from Omaha Steaks, we also got assorted packages of several different raw and cooked meat products as part of the promotion. One was hamburger  meat which prompted us to bake hamburger buns and make cheeseburgers. One of the additional packages was hotdogs. I am not sure when was the last time we ate hotdogs but since we had them in the freezer my wife proposed making “pigs in a blanket (PIB)”. The origin of this dish is not clear but hotdogs wrapped in “Pillsbury’s mini-crescent rolls”  appears to be the most common rendition in the U.S. (This was the stand-by dish my wife ate as a child.) My wife proposed we “kick-it-up-a-notch” and use frozen puff pastry instead of the Pillsbury mini-crescent. (Besides we didn’t have any mini-crescents but we did have frozen puff pastry which was getting old in the freezer). In keeping with the classic version of PIB she added cheese. (Just exactly like they were made when she was a child). Unlike the cheeseburgers we made some time ago, in which my wife insisted as a hamburger “purist” no ketchup or mustard should be involved, she insisted the case of hotdogs was completely different; ketchup and mustard, preferably mixed together were absolutely required. The PIB were good but the cheese ran out and made little puddles of crispy cheese on the bottom of the pan. I thought these were pretty good with the “required” amount of ketchup and mustard (As shown in the picture below, I did not mix the two together although my wife did). (We used Dijon mustard).

Ingredients (made 8 small P-in-Bs):
4 Hotdogs, thawed and cut into half
1 frozen puff pastry, thawed and cut into 8 long strips
Monterey jack and cheddar cheese (enough to stuff the hotdogs)

Directions:
Cut the hotdogs in half making 8 short pieces
Slit the hotdogs but not cut trough (may be better to make a pocket rather than cutting through to both ends)
Stuff the slits with the cheese (either cheddar or Monterey Jack)
Wrap it in the strips of puff pastry (see below)
Bake at 400F for 25 minutes (we used our toaster oven in convection mode).

In retrospect, to prevent the melting cheese from running out, it would be better to make a pocket in the hotdogs instead of cutting through to the ends. Another option would be to place the shredded cheese on the strip of puff pastry, wrap the cheese up by merging the both ends of the long edges of the pastry and then flatten it to the original width before wrapping the hotdogs. Nonetheless this was a nostalgic trip for my wife. These brought back some of the joy of one of her favorite childhood dishes. She did observe, however, that these hotdogs did not seem as flavorful as the ones she remembers. She mused that the brand used back then was probably Oscar-Mayer. I do not have any opinion since I am not sure I have ever tasted an O-M hotdog. To head off the possibility of a trip to the grocery store to retrieve a package of O-M’s I reminded my wife that the “taste difference” may be due to the difference between the taste buds of a child versus an adult. Nonetheless, she said the adult taste buds really liked this batch. While it was not part of my childhood I quite liked it too.