Build Your Own Ignatius Dog!

An ode to the literary character Ignatius J. Reilly and New Orlean's famed Muffaletta sandwich, the Ignatius Dog was one of my latest inventions that I served for the A Confederacy of Dunces book and supper club meeting.  If you follow these simple steps, you too can dine on this hot dog of epic proportions.

From the Bottom Up:
1.) Cut and hollow out (rip off excess bread using your hands) loaves of semolina bread, so they mimic a hot dog bun.  You can just use a hot dog bun, but the classic Muffaletta is made with semolina bread, so you should think about using semolina too!

2.) Layer the roll with thin slices of Virginia Ham, Genoa Salami and Swiss Cheese (you can change this up a bit, but this makes a pretty good combination)

3.) Time to put in the Hot Dog (I prefer to buy the homemade Frankfurters at Muncan Food Corp. on Broadway in Astoria). It goes right on top of the Swiss cheese layer so the heat from the dog melts the Swiss a little bit.  I heated the dogs in a pan with a little water, once the water evaporated I threw in a couple of slices of butter into the pan, just to get the dogs to blister up a bit and get nice and snappy.

4.) Load it up with Olive Salad (recipe to follow)

5.) Serve and eat! 

Lisa's Olive Salad:

Ingredients:

Colossal pitted green Sicilian olives

Carrots (cut into a 1/4 dice)

Celery (about the same size)

Dried Oregano -the higher the quality the better (try buying a bouquet of dried oregano over jarred oregano)

Extra Virgin Olive Oil- Again, the higher the quality the better

Salt and Pepper to taste

To Do:

Chop the olives to be about just a little bigger than the diced carrots and celery.  Combine all the ingredients in a bowl, toss, and store it.  Mix it once or twice a day, and I would say to prepare this at least one day in advance so it could really marinate.  Salt and pepper it accordingly, remembering that the olives are very salty.