Hot Dogs with Quick Pickled Onions

1. 1Toss the sliced red onion with the vinegar, sugar and a pinch of salt and leave it for at least 15 minutes. It'll soften and turn bright pink, and the acid cuts straight through the richness of the sausage.
2. 2Score the frankfurters with shallow diagonal cuts about 1 cm apart, not quite all the way through. The cuts open up as they cook, which gives you more browned surface and stops the skin splitting in one long tear.
3. 3Cook them in a dry pan or on a griddle over medium heat for 6–8 minutes, turning often, until browned in the scores and heated right through. Boiling works but gives you a pale, waterlogged sausage with no colour at all.
4. 4Butter the inside faces of the buns and toast them cut-side down in the same pan for about a minute, until lightly golden. A toasted inner face is what stops the bun going soggy from the condiments.
5. 5For a softer bun in the classic style, steam them instead: sit them in a colander over simmering water for 60 seconds with a lid on.
6. 6Lay a sausage in each bun, then add the mustard and ketchup in stripes down the length rather than a blob at one end, so every bite gets some.
7. 7Top with the drained pickled onion, gherkins and crispy fried onions, and eat immediately while the bun is still warm.

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