The blog of cooking-ez.com
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.
42K 4.1/5 based on 18 reviews
Last modified on: September 29th 2018
Keywords for this post:SausageCookingNeedleForkKnifeBrothBriocheShould 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 different cooking modes
In cooking, cooking means bringing food into contact with a source of heat, to transform it: improving its taste, and sometimes its texture. This contact with the heat source can be achieved in a number of ways: these are the cooking methods, and let's take a look at the main ones.4965 July 24th 2024
Clean your mixer easily
If you use a "bowl" or "blender" mixer, as opposed to a plunger, you've probably noticed that it's a bit of a hassle to clean it after use. And yet, with a simple trick, it can be done very quickly. See how here.1,8435 June 26th 2024
Preserving egg yolks
If you're using only the egg whites in a recipe (such as meringues ), you'll need to store the yolks until you're ready to use them again. There's nothing very complicated about this in principle - all you have to do is chill them, but there are a few pitfalls to be avoided in practice.2,3185 June 18th 2024
Preservative oil, an asset for taste
When you prepare a dish using an ingredient that has been preserved in fat, for example a springtime mixed salad with tuna in oil or sun-dried tomatoes, you're probably going to make a french dressing (vinaigrette) next. In that case, why not use the preserved oil from the tuna or tomatoes?2,4615 June 5th 2024
Don't throw away disposable piping bags
Nowadays, it's fairly easy to find what professionals use as piping bags, i.e. disposable or "single-use" plastic ones. They're practical, functional and inexpensive, but disposable? That's debatable...3,8615 May 28th 2024
Other pages you may also like
What is the difference between bakery and patisserie?
This is a question that you may well have asked yourself and which I will attempt to answer. In France the two trades of "boulangerie" (bakery) and "pâtisserie" (patisserie and confectionery) have always been quite distinct, but where exactly do the boundaries lie? .121K 14.1 February 7th 2017
Kitchen ovens
You certainly have one in your kitchen, an oven, the essential tool for all kinds of cooking, whether in the kitchen of course, but also in pastry, bakery, pizza, and many others. Here is some information on its structure and operation.23K4.4 May 16th 2020
Sugar syrups
In cooking, and especially in pastry, we often use sugar syrups, a simple mixture of water and sugar in varying proportions. Here is a presentation of their differences. .6,6364.8 January 17th 2023
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.268K 23.7 June 23th 2021
The golden-brown finish on puff pastry
Let's take a look at the tricky matter of producing puff pastry with an attractive, golden-brown finish. French pastry chefs call this "dorure" (literally, "gilding"). Behind this quirky term there lurks a real problem (and the solution): when using puff pastry (pâte feuilletée) for a pie, or...40K 24.6 February 8th 2018
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.