Best Hot Dog In The US? | Rutt’s Hut Ripper Recipe!

Rutt’s Hut has been an establishment in Clifton, New Jersey since 1928, severing up deep fried hot dogs known as, “Rippers.” Several publications have named Rutt’s Hut dogs as the Best in the USA! Besides being deep fried it’s their relish that makes them so special. Below you will find the actual recipe that was posted by Anne Rutt in a newspaper column in the 40s. Enjoy!
Rutt’s Hut Relish Recipe
4 cups fine-chopped cabbage
1 cup fine-chopped carrot
1 cup fine-chopped green pepper
1 cup fine-chopped onion
1/4 cup pickling salt
1 cup water plus 2 Tbsp.
1 cup white vinegar
1/2 tsp. celery seed (TFD change, original was 1 tsp.)
1/2 tsp. celery salt (TFD addition)
1/2 tsp. mustard seed
2 cups white sugar
1 tsp. freshly-ground mustard seed note
1 1/2 tsp. ground turmeric
3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
1 (1-quart) sterilized canning jar with lid and ring
Instructions
Combine the cabbage, carrot, green pepper, onion and pickling salt in a large bowl, toss to combine. Allow to sit 2 hours.
Rinse the mixture thoroughly with cold water, drain and squeeze to remove excess liquid.
Combine the vegetables with the water and vinegar in a large pot. Bring the mixture to a low boil and simmer for 1 hour covered. Stir the celery seed, the mustard seed, and sugar into the vegetables.
Mix the ground mustard, turmeric and flour together in a bowl.
Carefully spoon 2 tbsp of boiling water into the mustard mixture, stir into a paste. (I used 3-4 tbsp of warm water) Add the paste back into the boiling vegetable mixture, cook and stir until thickened, about 5 minutes more.
Original Flickr post: https://www.flickr.com/photos/kenwalker/5533937872
Send your requests here: ballisticbbq@co x.net
Gear I use:
My Book: https://amzn.to/2HI6tMg
My links: https://www.amazon.com/shop/ballisticbbq for my Gear Picks!
Stainless Burger Ring: https://amzn.to/39UN9dB
LEM Meat Grinder: https://amzn.to/3bMhtIY
Blackstone Griddle: https://amzn.to/2UuGfEH
Burger Paper Squares: https://amzn.to/2wyvDL8
Spatula Set: https://amzn.to/2V9HABk
Ballistic Smasher: https://www.cast-iron-grate.com/smash…
Burger Flipper: https://amzn.to/2HbksgS
Trowel Burger Flipper (Or make one) https://www.katom.com/135-16530.html?…
Blackstone Griddle: https://amzn.to/3580agj
Shun Knives: https://shun.kaiusa.com/dual-core.html
“Steak Weight” https://amzn.to/3lUBA9n
Ballistic MoJoe Griddle https://www.mojoegriddle.com/shop/bal…
Ballistic Griddle https://www.cast-iron-grate.com/bbq-a…
ThermoWorks thermometers:
Thermoworks Smoke X http://www.thermoworks.com/Smokex?tw=BALLISTICBBQ
Thermoworks Smoke http://www.thermoworks.com/Smoke?tw=BALLISTICBBQ
Thermopen IR http://www.thermoworks.com/Thermapen-Ir?tw=BALLISTICBBQ
Thermapen Mk4 – http://www.thermoworks.com/Thermapen-Mk4?tw=BALLISTICBBQ
Thermapop – http://www.thermoworks.com/ThermoPop?tw=BALLISTICBBQ
Chef Alarm – http://www.thermoworks.com/ChefAlarm?tw=BALLISTICBBQ
#ballisticbbq #RuttsHut #Ripperhotdog

today I’m bling barbecue I’m going to be recreating the famous deep fried hot dog known as the Ripper from rutz Hut out of Clifton New Jersey and while we’re at it we’re going to be making their famous German hot dog relish let’s get going rutz Hut first opened in Clifton New Jersey back in 1928 by a gentleman named Royal rut he preferred to go by the name of Abe Abe rut and his wife an Rett back in 1928 and they are still going strong to this day in fact they’ve been named by several Publications as the best hot dog in the United States their claim to fame is the fact that they’re deep frying their hot dogs they have a few different sorts of the In-N-Out which is they drop it in the oil and it floats up and it’s done the most popular dog is the Ripper and then they have the welli and the Creator um what I’m going to be making today is the Ripper but from what I understand the hot dog is not complete and this actually makes the hot dog is their famous German relish and I have the recipe I did a really deep dive online just looking up as much information I could about ruts and in particular this relish and finally I found a couple blogs that were mentioning that they were posting a recipe that this had come from a uh from an old newspaper clipping uh but they weren’t showing the clipping they weren’t giving credit to anybody who actually posted a clipping finally I found that clipping and it was posted like I want to say I might be getting this wrong in 2008 on Flickr uh which is a website I don’t even know if it’s being used anymore but people would post photos and this guy posted a an old yellowed copy of this recipe he said that a buddy of his gave him a shoe box full of old recipes uh from the 20s and the 50s and this was one of them and it was for a German cabbage relish and the lady who submitted this recipe’s name was Anne fedek rut an rut and the address she gave was the New Jersey address actually the address for rut’s Hut so so now my focus was trying to verify this the source this recipe it was called recipes for your scrapbook in this newspaper article and turns out that this is sort of it was a syndicated thing created by this lady um and these recipes showed up in various newspapers all over the Northeast um some Midwestern states and eastern states and um yeah I saw several of recipes from different submitters different recipes and they all were the same format and again this looks very much like the yellowed recipe clippings that in particular a uh blogger I think the blog is called uh recipe curios or curio recipes and she has a whole collection of of these recipes for your scrapbook clippings so we’re making it I’m going to have a link because this guy if he’s still around on the interwebs deserves some credit I’ll have a link down for this uh flicker article or the post that he made we’re g to start off with this recipe and I made this recipe you need to make it at least 24 hours in advance I made this a couple nights ago but for visual Learners like myself I’m going to recreate because there are some discoveries I made that I think it’s important to share with you guys uh as we make this so we’re going to kick this off with four cups of grated cabbage it needs to be fine and what I did was hit it on a mandolin I I quartered the Cabbage like a mediumsized cabbage cut it into quarters so that that stock was maintaining it stayed intact so it was holding together and I hit the mandolin with it and then I laid it out on a cutting board just chop chop chop with a chopping knife and made these nice fine chops here so four cups I have here one cup of chopped bell pepper same thing mandolin and then chopped it very fine you can see it’s very fine I saw some videos where people were speculating that this relish that they were using was you know like a pickle relish with mustard and you’ll see there’s no pickles in this recipe at all one cup finely chopped onion same thing mandolin very fine and then I went ahead and chopped It On The Cutting Board then one cup finely chopped carrots and what I did was grated it finely grated the then chopped it now the next ingredient is something I didn’t even know existed I don’t do any canning or pickling um so I immediately bought this off of Amazon when I saw this in the recipe because I wanted to make sure I had it here in time for this video but it’s called pickling or canning salt and it’s basically what it is this is a sea salt and it has no additives at all so no anti-caking agency no or anything like that so I think kosher salt or um Regular sea salt as long as it’s really fine would work well and we’re adding this not only I think it’s going to impart some flavors into the vegetables here but it’s also going to help us extract some of the liquids there’s a lot of liquid especially in the onions and the bell peppers so large bowl you need a lid telling you that you need a lid now let’s give us a good Shake I just want to make sure that salt covers all those little bits and pieces of vegetable in this bowl here now we’re going to allow this to set for two hours after that two hours I’m going to transfer all this chopped vegetable into a strainer run it under some cold water in the sink I want to try to get off all that salt as much salt as I can then we’re going to place it on a I’m I’m going to use a tea towel that’s what I used last time a nice clean I used the new tea towel fold it pat it then rolled it up and rang it out over the sink just try to get out as much of the excess water as you can believe me even when you’re done doing that you’ll see once the cook starts there’s plenty of water in this vegetable see in a bit two hours has passed hypothetically and I have the vegetables now in it’s asking for a large pot initially I went with my definition of a large pot it was way too big um this is like a around a two or three qu pot and this was actually the perfect size because I was feeling like wow there’s not a lot of water going on in to this uh recipe here but you’ll notice as you start cooking more liquids coming out of the vegetables and it’s plenty of plenty of liquid so I have here one cup of water plus 2 tablespoons of white vinegar pour that in give this a stir get that that heat on now I’m going to bring this up to a boil reduce the heat to a simmer put a lid on it got to cover this and we’re going to allow this to simmer for one hour one hour has passed now what we’re going to do is add 1/2 teaspoon of whole Mustard Seed and one teaspoon of celery seed add that to the mix this seemed like a lot to me but believe me this is a really good recipe two cups of white sugar to stirred up all right now this next part I had to modify and I think it’s a good modification I can guarantee you it’s a good modification these old recipes sometimes you know these people are writing them down and it’s really kind of almost Word of Mouth recipes or they just jot things down and trying to put it into an actual like recipe format um I think a few things are inaccurate because they’re actually just sort of going by feel rather than measurements so I have here three tablespoons allpurpose flour to a bowl then one and 1/2 teaspoons of ground turmeric and one teaspoon of ground mustard to that bowl Now the recipe is saying take uh two tablespoons of the boiling water out of this and add it to this Stir It Up into a paste and then add that to the mix and what happens is you end up with like mustard turmeric dumplings and it’s not a good thing so instead you need to go by feel on this um I have like this is a/4 cup of water I’m probably not going to add all of this and this is warm water it’s not boiling just add that and what I’m looking for more than a paste is a slurry yeah that two tablespoons of hot water of boiling water it it created a big problem and I had to redo this recipe because of it so now that’s a pretty good paste it’s actually a lot more of a paste than the two tablespoons leaves you with but I’m going to add just a little bit more water just to loosen it up a little bit more so again we’re just going by feel here we’re not going by precise measurements on this and this is what I’m looking for I want it to be really loose and we’re going to add this and get that stirred in now I believe going by memory here that the recipe at this point says uh cook an additional five minutes it takes longer than five minutes uh what I did was I just stayed at the at the stove keeping it moving keeping it stirring and I I increased the Heat and I just reduced it and um because right now it’s very watery and I was waiting until it was more of like a like the bubbles instead of going pop po pop you know like like they do with water they were going like slow bloop once that happened I poured it into a one qu uh Mason jar while it was still very hot sealed it and allowed it to sit I’ll tell you this that um initially trying it out of the pot you know like the residue that was left behind after I pour it into the jar I thought this is sweet like way too sweet had my wife try it she agreed with me it was just it was good but it just seemed very sweet for a hot dog relish now after 24 hours some magic happened and this turned into an amazing amazing an amazing relish um it’s not too sweet a lot of savoriness and the spices came together and it’s so so good and it’s funny I gave my wife a sampling of it this morning after again it’s been now two days that that I made it and she was shocked and she thought it was again same reaction as me really really good and and I can tell not just not just for hot dogs but hamburgers as well so this is a about a/4 of a cup of what I ended up with so that is again after it’s you know rested for in a jar for two days and um this stuff is just amazing and it looks really cool too no pickles no relish there’s mustard but not out of a jar um and again this stuff is awesome now we’re ready for the fun part we’re going to cook up some hot dogs so now we’re touching on the most important thing about this video about this recipe if you want to have success with making a ripper and that’s the hot dog choice you make rutz Hut they’re having their hot dogs um custom made so to speak by a Sausage Company um supposedly just for you know frying really all you need to make sure that you’re buying hot dogs that have a natural casing on them most of the hot dogs you’re going to see in your grocery store they have they’re what they call skinless there’s no case on them at all they’re making them in like this kind of a plastic case and then pushing them out of the case before they package them so there’s no casing on it um the hot dogs I like to buy are are either Bor head or deeton Watson these and I’m showing you this they’re they’re connected these are natural case hot dogs these are Deets and Watson and these are a blend of beef and pork which is what rut’s Hut is using beef and pork without a natural case you’re not going to end up with a ripper because what happens inside of this hot dog is you know all the fats are rendering out the moisture is wanting to escape and it has to escape through that natural skin that you know natural membrane and so it pops it bursts that will not happen so like your Oscar Meyer your Hebrew National your Ballpark Franks um unfortunately a lot of the nathens I’ve noticed I used to buy these natural skin nathens and I haven’t seen them at least in my store in quite some time they’re all skinless they’re bragging about it which is crazy to me because I think the best hot dogs have the skin on them but anyway these again are Deets and watts and just make sure you’re looking for natural CED hot dogs or it’s not going to rip on you let’s cook these so here’s my oil it’s all preheated and I’m running it pretty hot this is running at 370 degrees Fahrenheit now on my griddle I have this just mesh laying down here I don’t think rutz Hut is really doing anything with the Buns I don’t they’re definitely not toasting them I don’t see them coming out of a steamer the videos I’ve seen of them behind the counter making these dogs they have them all stacked up on a stainless Ste shelf over the cooking area so I it doesn’t look like a warming shelf but what I’m doing here is I have that mesh down a little bit of water it’s on low just to kind of provide a little humidity for these so they’re just going to sit over there again this is on low and just a little water below there so it’s going to stay humid here and for this cook you’re looking at usually like four five minutes or so but I’m more or less just kind of looking at the uh at the dogs here I can actually feel that soft steam coming up in softening these buns right there’s what we’re looking for right there [Music] [Music] [Music] first thing I’m going to add is that [Music] relish at rutz Hut they just give you the dogs you add the condiments and the classic way is with the the relish that German cabbage relish and stone ground mustard that’s what I’m going with but they also have you know ketchup and chili and things like that too and here we are rippers from rut’s Hut let’s give this a try look at that while was cooking you know you can smell that that rendering hot dog I guess smell sausage smell this looks so cool you just don’t get that snap from those skinless hot dogs this relish is It’s Magic even if you don’t like cabbage you’ll like this because you’re not it’s not like eating KLA you’re not really getting a whole lot of that cabbagey uh flavor um It’s amazing And then mixed with this you know this stone ground mustard it’s even better again so Savory this um this relish does have that sweetness to it but also it’s packed with a lot of you know spice and savoriness mixing with the salty hot dog and and the spicy mustard and the soft but I mean it’s a perfect hot dog so texturally the relish is interesting I mean it’s not you know the big chunks like um you know blackies uh hot dogs that relish they use that I you know I did the video on um it has the chunks are a lot larger in that relish than this this is just little tiny bits and you feel them in your mouth you know when you’re eating and it’s everything’s just coming together this is a freaking good hot dog guys I’m telling you wow anyway this has been a long requested hot dog from numerous people including myself so those of you that were encouraging me to make this thank you so much again I’ll have the link to that old flicker posting um just again for no other reason to give that guy credit for bringing this to the surface and remember too that um an rut she posted it she made it public to everyone so thank you an rest in peace um wow anyway I’m happy this was a good I was I was really looking forward to making this uh anyway if you’re not subscribed please consider hanging that sub button ringing the notification Bell thumb it up if you like it I hope you did I’ll have the recipe down below um remember I did have to make a couple modifications I’m going to leave it exactly how she wrote it down below but especially when it comes to making that slurry with the flower and the you know mustard powder turmeric and everything uh please learn from what I did because again I the first batch I tried to make I ended up with dumplings in there so don’t do that anyway I will see you on the next video keep those suggestions coming in cheers