Should a sausage be pricked before cooking?
If you are using sausages in a recipe, you may have already asked yourself the question: Should you prick it before cooking it, or not?
You will certainly find as many opinions "you should prick" as "you should not".
Let's try to untangle all this.
You will certainly find as many opinions "you should prick" as "you should not".
Let's try to untangle all this.
46 K 4.1/5 (18 reviews)
Keywords for this post:SausageCookingNeedleForkKnifeBrothBriocheLast modified on: September 29th 2018
Should a sausage be pricked before cooking?
A sausage, well a good one, that is to say not an industrial by-product, is a piece of gut in which is threaded a mixture of meat, spices and salt. The casing is closed at both ends, and the sausage thus formed is put to dry or to smoke. Molène sausage for example, Morteau sausage (the best in the world, no less...), or many others.
So obviously if you cook it by poaching it, i.e. in boiling water, pitting it will cause some of the cooking water to enter the sausage and "steal" some of its taste, its smoke. So, okay, it's better not to prick it.
That said, cooking a sausage by poaching is not the best way to cook it, even if it is not pricked, the contact with boiling water is not necessarily interesting for the taste.
You will get a much better result with an oven cooking: Roll the sausage in a sheet of aluminium foil, put it on a plate or a dish and put it in the oven at 180° for about 40/45 minutes (in the case of a Morteau, 30 minutes for a Molène), the sausage will cook of course, but it will also caramelize a bit, and its taste will be sublimated by this long cooking at a reasonable temperature.
And by the way, spiked or not in this case? Well, a little bit as you want, if you prick some of the fat will escape and you will have a sausage a little less fatty, but also a little drier, it's up to you.
If you make a sausage in a bun for example, I strongly advise you to cook it in the oven.
In another case, the sausage is cooked in, or in contact with, its filling: potatoes, beans, lentils,..., then it's quite clear: you MUST prick, this way the taste of the sausage will fall (or go down) on the filling, the potatoes for example, and you will have an exceptional dish in taste!
I come back to the poached sausage, which is not pricked, in principle. I say "in principle" because in fact you can poach it if you want to do a double job, that is to say cook the sausage, but also obtain a very fragrant cooking broth from the water.
In this case, you will notice that the cooking water becomes cloudy and a little fatty as it cooks, because of the exchange that takes place with the sausage. At the end of the cooking process, remove the sausage, and you will have in the pan not only water but a "Molène broth" or "Morteau broth" that you can happily use to cook rice for example, vegetables, pasta, or a little bit of everything you want, and this cooking with broth will be much more tasty than a "l'anglaise" cooking (boiling salted water).
To sum up: Should a sausage be pricked before cooking? Well, it depends on the cooking method, and can we draw a general rule from this? Let's try it...
So obviously if you cook it by poaching it, i.e. in boiling water, pitting it will cause some of the cooking water to enter the sausage and "steal" some of its taste, its smoke. So, okay, it's better not to prick it.
That said, cooking a sausage by poaching is not the best way to cook it, even if it is not pricked, the contact with boiling water is not necessarily interesting for the taste.
You will get a much better result with an oven cooking: Roll the sausage in a sheet of aluminium foil, put it on a plate or a dish and put it in the oven at 180° for about 40/45 minutes (in the case of a Morteau, 30 minutes for a Molène), the sausage will cook of course, but it will also caramelize a bit, and its taste will be sublimated by this long cooking at a reasonable temperature.
And by the way, spiked or not in this case? Well, a little bit as you want, if you prick some of the fat will escape and you will have a sausage a little less fatty, but also a little drier, it's up to you.
If you make a sausage in a bun for example, I strongly advise you to cook it in the oven.
In another case, the sausage is cooked in, or in contact with, its filling: potatoes, beans, lentils,..., then it's quite clear: you MUST prick, this way the taste of the sausage will fall (or go down) on the filling, the potatoes for example, and you will have an exceptional dish in taste!
I come back to the poached sausage, which is not pricked, in principle. I say "in principle" because in fact you can poach it if you want to do a double job, that is to say cook the sausage, but also obtain a very fragrant cooking broth from the water.
In this case, you will notice that the cooking water becomes cloudy and a little fatty as it cooks, because of the exchange that takes place with the sausage. At the end of the cooking process, remove the sausage, and you will have in the pan not only water but a "Molène broth" or "Morteau broth" that you can happily use to cook rice for example, vegetables, pasta, or a little bit of everything you want, and this cooking with broth will be much more tasty than a "l'anglaise" cooking (boiling salted water).
To sum up: Should a sausage be pricked before cooking? Well, it depends on the cooking method, and can we draw a general rule from this? Let's try it...
- Poached => do not poach, unless you want to obtain a broth at the same time
- Oven cooking => do not poach if you want to reduce the fat, but be careful => sausage is drier, otherwise do not poach
- Cooked in contact with the filling => we prick!
Lasts posts
The importance of sieving
In recipes that use a fine powder (flour, powdered sugar, etc.), you'll often see the advice to sift before using it. To sift is to pass the powder in question through a sieve (a very fine strainer) before incorporating it into your recipe. It's often advice, but is it really useful?September 3rd 2025408
The grease spray
As soon as you have something in a recipe that sticks to the mold, the question always arises as to how difficult it is to remove from the mold. There's nothing more frustrating than breaking your cake when unmolding it, because part of it has stuck in the mold. The classic way to avoid this is...August 26th 20254,2235
Cake moulds
When we make a cake, or a cake of the same rectangular shape, we usually take out our usual mould and tell ourselves that the recipe is anyway "for a cake", but is it really that simple?August 25th 20254,5515
Thinning out herbs
If you need to add a long-stemmed herb (tarragon, mint, verbena, thyme, etc.) to a recipe, you'll probably only need the leaves and not the stem, so you'll need to remove the leaves. Leaf removal means keeping only the beautiful leaves, and eliminating the ugly stems and leaves, but how do you do...August 8th 20252,7595
Add a bay leaf
Bay leaf: small in size, but big in flavor. You'll find it in hundreds of recipes, and it's often added to cooking meat, in a sauce or broth, usually accompanied by other herbs or products. It's a staple of Provençal, Mediterranean and Oriental cuisine, but not the only one. Usually, in a...July 31th 20252,8675
Other pages you may also like
The grease spray
As soon as you have something in a recipe that sticks to the mold, the question always arises as to how difficult it is to remove from the mold. There's nothing more frustrating than breaking your cake when unmolding it, because part of it has stuck in the mold. The classic way to avoid this is...August 26th 20254,2235
The 3 secrets of Parisian flan
A flan Parisien, or boulanger, is a simple yet delicious cake. A cream, a mixture of milk, eggs and sugar, is poured into a raw pastry base and baked in the oven until the pastry and cream are cooked. This is the simplest version of the recipe, probably the original one, but nowadays the cream...July 21th 202313 K4.7
The window-pane test in bread-making
The home bread-makers often ask themselves “Have I kneaded my dough long enough?” . A good question, as dough that is insufficiently kneaded will not rise properly or will fall flat when the top is slashed, which is very frustrating. To know when the dough is ready, one can rely on the length...June 16th 202194 K 23.9
A few tips for effective kneading at home
When you have to knead dough for bread or some other recipe, you may well use a food processor or the type of machine known as a stand mixer. The best-known brands are Kenwood and KitchenAid. They are useful tools, but here are a few tips to help you get the best out of them.June 23th 2021280 K 23.7
The art of the charlotte
In cooking, a charlotte is a delicious moulded dessert, with biscuits around the outside that have been soaked in a flavoured syrup, filled with a light cream or mousse. The charlotte is left to set in the fridge before being turned out and served in slices. It is very light and a lovely sweet...February 27th 201344 K4.3
Post a comment or question
Follow this page
If you are interested in this page, you can "follow" it, by entering your email address here. You will then receive a notification immediately each time the page is modified or a new comment is added. Please note that you will need to confirm this following.
Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.
Alternatively: you can subscribe to the mailing list of cooling-ez.com , you will receive a e-mail for each new recipe published on the site.