Make this: Vegan corn dogs

Summer’s finally here, and with it my favorite seasonal bounty: carnival food. Sure, I appreciate a good garden veggie. But in a contest between a funnel cake and organic kale, deep-fried batter wins every time. My unhealthy obsession with fried fabulousness is responsible for my corn dog cravings, too. All it takes is a whiff of that county fair scent and I’m ready to eat until I hurl on the Tilt-a-Whirl. But while the “corn” is transcendent, the “dog” is problematic, and not just because I’m a vegetarian. Any right-minded omnivore should pause before consuming carny meat.

I needed professional advice on how to make a vegan corn dog, so I popped into Element in Lafayette Square, where a team of five accomplished chefs collaborate on an ever-changing, seasonal menu. In retrospect, it probably doesn’t include Ferris wheel season because, while I was blathering on about the simple brilliance of food on a stick, Element’s executive chef Brian Hardesty was slicing up a sophisticated caramelized bacon-wrapped embutido (Filipino meatloaf). Nonetheless, he was a good sport, offering helpful suggestions like, “Don’t make anything with seitan, tofu and beans because that’s just too expected.” I nonchalantly crossed seitan, tofu and beans off my “must-try – yum” list and listened earnestly.

Hardesty thought I could purée vegetables, bind them with Ultra-Tex 8 (It sounds like a performance fabric but it’s actually a modified tapioca starch.), dehydrate or steam the mixture, and then smoke it. I was fresh out of modified tapioca starch, food dehydrators and smokers, so I turned to a quirky gem of a blog: Thriftyliving.net. Besides cat photos, it’s got some really nice vegan recipes, including one that calls for shaping tofu (Sorry, Chef!) into hot dogs using wheat gluten as a binder and aluminum foil as a mold, then steaming the dogs. Ms. Thrifty’s technique sounded crazier than a fun house – and it worked. I didn’t even need a vegan casing; the gluten holds the shape so well that the dogs can be grilled or – You know it! – battered and fried. Element chef Sam Boettler gave me the final piece to the appearance puzzle when he told me about the trick of using annatto seeds as a natural red food coloring. I used them to make annatto-flavored oil, which didn’t change the taste of the dogs, but did help them look less beige and more like traditional franks.

To flavor the “meat,” I used what Hardesty called “hot dog spices”: cayenne pepper, onion and garlic powder. I also added a little barbecue sauce and smoked paprika for that campfire taste. If you want more exotic dogs, you could use nutmeg, cumin and cardamom. Or make them spicy with a squeeze of Sriracha.

Finally, I whipped up a cornmeal batter, but was flooded with guilt as I heated the oil. Four chefs and I went through a lot of trouble to make a healthy hot dog. Was I really going to ruin it? Yes, I was. Fried batter is fluffy, crispy and delicious. If you insist, you can bake your corn dogs. The batter will be denser and not a rich golden brown. But, you’ll have made a healthy cooking choice. Me? I’m going to eat a few fried ones, then find a Tilt-a-Whirl.