Let’s Cook With Viki: Octopus Hotdogs!

Remember when Yang Tai (“Terry”) told Da Hua in “Princess’ Stand In” that one of his favorite foods was the octopus hotdogs often eaten by Taiwanese children? Hotdogs are generally associated with a summer barbecue food, so we thought we’d kick off the month of August by re-creating the octopus hotdogs from the drama!


Check out the trailer for the Taiwanese romantic drama below:



Now, let’s get cooking! As always, remember to keep your workspace clean and wash your hands!

Great, ready to go? There’s a very long list of ingredients and complex tools required to create octopus hotdogs. See the following:

• 1 package of all-beef hotdogs

Just kidding! Seriously, all you need is a package of all-beef hotdogs, a very sharp knife, and a cutting board.

First, cut your hotdogs in half, either straight down the middle, or you can cut them at a slight angle. Personally, I prefer cutting them straight down the middle, but cutting them at an angle is fine, too.



After cutting them in half, you need to cut your hotdog halves so that you can form the octopus legs. Start by first cutting a slit down the middle of the hotdog, then turn it to the other side and cut another slit. At this point, the half of the hotdog should be cut in fourths. Cut each fourth in half, and now you should have eight octopus legs!

If you decided to cut your hotdogs at an angle, simply make four to six slits on the front side of the longer end of the hotdog.


Next, we need to cook our hotdogs! You can do this by either pan frying them for about 2 minutes, or you can boil them in hot water for about a minute. (Note, angled hotdogs will need to be boiled instead of panfried.)