Thursday Thoughts~ Sausages

So many thoughts a second is how the brain actually works. I had several pandemic posts all planned out and another thought or three said, “no corona thoughts for this Thursday”
Today the predominant thought brings up a question for you guys out there.

How do you cook your sausages?

All around the world you can find variations of sausages like, even further beyond what we can imagine.
Spicy sausages and bratwurst are a couple that come to mind. Another is, oh yeah one of my favourites, to sit and order chorizo. Chorizo varies from country to country and I always order it when I can, delicious.
What about you though? How do you cook em?

Here in Ireland we love our pork sausages. We do not like a whole lot of tricking around done to them though. We have never been too fond of having the sausage extra stuffed with apples or pears or any other kind of messing around.
Our typical breakfast sausage is spiced a little, not too much.
We tend to have bland food here in Ireland by comparison to the high end gourmet cuisines from around the world.
Our sausage though, oh boy, don’t mess with them.

There are Irish nationals all around the world who dream of the sausages back home. Yes there are many who live in Australia or United States who long for the bread and the butter from back home. The big thing the majority long for though, are the sausages. I am one person who cannot fault anyone for these kinds of cravings. They are just simply delicious.

Like I said nothing too fancy at all. The good reliable pork links. “Yup, thems the lads alright”. I am not sure how good they are for your health, think of it, greasy fried pork links… Cannot be too good for your overall health at all.
We Irish love them. Yes you are right in thinking along the lines of stereo types, we love our potatoes too.
Here are some of the brands that are very popular, in case you ever want to stray from your life long fav and branch out to try any of the others. Denny, Kearns, Clonakilty, Superquinn brand, these are just a few. I am quite sure there are a few other local butchers close to other parts of the country that are churning out awesome sausages too.

So how do you cook them?

 

My main reason for asking is that I have a preferred method of cooking the sausages and I often wondered, does everybody cook them the same?

There have been times where my gut will scream at me to fire up the frying pan and slow cook them in a shallow fry situation.
Majority of times I prefer to cook the sausages under the grill.
There are times I will spice up some oil in the pan and lash the sausages in to the new heavily seasoned mix in the pan and slow cook em so they are as delicious as always, with an extra lashing of “spicyness”. Getting back to the grilling though. I can endure checking on them and turning them slowly. Not ever getting them cooking fully on any side before turning. It is like the best mind game one can play. How do I get the sausages to have an even brown cooked appearance on all sides at the same time while being cooked perfectly on the inside as well….The real question though and what I really am looking forward to hearing from you all.

How do you cook them?

Why harp on about the sausages.
I feel it is a worthy question to throw out there. It is like asking you, how do you make your mashed potatoes? Everybody has their little quirk or way of doing it.
So the question of questions with the sausages is this.

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Do you pierce the skin while you are cooking sausages?

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Do you take a fork and prod holes into the skin of the sausage to help it cook on the inside?

Is there a process where you pierce the sausages before putting them under the grill or on the pan?
Do you have some special method that you get them turning brown on all sides just slightly first and then pierce them so that way the inside can catch up in the cooking process? There are many questions to ask all about cooking our sausages.
Do ya spice em up, grill em plain, cut them up smaller and use the wok?
Many many questions indeed.The main question though is all about piercing them or no piercing?

Perhaps, let’s say you use the pan always.
Do you burn em up a bit and then pierce them, this can be a bit dodgy though, cause, sometimes the juice inside of them is almost like boiling fat and it can come out pretty rapid once you wait too long before piercing. Be careful with that one. Do you never pierce em and just be very very careful to cook the sausages slow enough so that they are cooking through to the center as they brown nice and evenly on the outside? Could anyone ever imagine how there is such a bunch of possibilities all linked to our links.
Sausages of all things.

Oh God they are tasty little buggers though. So even though there are many Irish folks all around the world right now who maybe long for the taste of back home. A sausage sandwich, which we in Ireland would call a

           “sossy sambo”.

It is a simple dish to make. Fresh sliced bread, heavily buttered with salty, creamy butter (another to die for taste of Ireland) and a tiny taste of tomato ketchup. If you do not have any tomato ketchup you can substitute with either red or brown sauce. Ha~ha.
Cooked sausage, sliced down the length of it so you get two nice precise halves, lash it into the ready buttered bread and have at it as quickly as you can before all the melted butter destroys your fingers.
Oh yes, that’s a feed alright. Now back to the big question.Do you pierce your sausages when

  ~  Cooking them?

  ~  Pre cooking?

  ~  During cooking?

  ~  Never pierce them?Let me hear a few answers if you would. I wish to get adventurous with my own sausage cooking.

 

Thank you and stop licking your lips, people might not get what you are doing reading this and sitting there licking your lips….
That is not too bad, I have been here writing this and my nose is trying to tell me I am smelling sausages cooking. It is 2 a.m and there are no sausages cooking anywhere. I am probably smelling the memories of the undeniably satisfying beauty that our Irish sausages are. Have a happy Thursday & enjoy a Thursday thought about sausages.

Comment below with some of your tips for the perfect sausage. Thanks.