Poking holes in your sausage will not only let a good deal of the juices and fat escape, resulting in a dry sausage, but this technique will also diminish the sausage's flavor. Good Food notes that if you're concerned about your sausages splitting or exploding, it's important to cook them over a low heat.
“Some people like to put a couple of small holes in their snags to stop them from exploding. This is because back in the day, butchers used to add water to their sausages, so they'd often pop if you didn't prick them, which is why they're called bangers,” he says.
Do I need to prick my sausages before baking? The jury is still out on this one, but no, you do not need to prick them before cooking. Some say pricking sausage before baking reduces the fat content of the sausage, as it allows fat to escape the sausage casing during cooking.
Don't break or score the casing
If you're scoring a fresh sausage, you're doing it wrong. Like a Kelly Bundy-style dress on a club girl, that casing serves the very specific purpose of holding all of the good stuff in its place.
Poking holes in your sausage will not only let a good deal of the juices and fat escape, resulting in a dry sausage, but this technique will also diminish the sausage's flavor. Good Food notes that if you're concerned about your sausages splitting or exploding, it's important to cook them over a low heat.
Probing also helps you know the meat temperature to avoid overcooking. Another benefit that has been associated with poking holes in raw meat is that it helps tenderize the meat. The piercings allow heat to penetrate deeper when cooking, cutting down on the cooking time and making the meat tender.
Poking holes will prevent splitting by giving steam someplace to escape when they heat up, but it will also let the fat escape, so you have to be careful not to overcook them or they'll dry out and lose flavor. If you don't poke holes, cook them over lower heat.
The best sausages are made from good cuts of meat with plenty of fat, which will cook quickly and be tender and juicy inside the usually narrow casing, which is why pure meat sausages with no additives are generally more expensive than cheaper varieties which are laced with preservative and other adulterants.
It is sometimes said that puncturing sausage before grilling will keep the casing from bursting, but a better solution to this problem is to cook over low to medium heat.
You can cook the sausage in either a standard frying pan or grill. Just make sure to put a little bit of oil in there to prevent the sausages from sticking to each other. Flip it from time to time to ensure that they cook evenly. When the sausages are cooked through to the center, turn up the heat to brown the surface!
Meat hanging is a culinary process, commonly used in beef aging, that improves the flavor of meats by allowing the natural enzymes in the meat to break down the tissue through dry aging. The process also allows the water in the meat to evaporate, thus concentrating the flavor.
A common misconception with spot-checking the temperature of a steak is that poking it with a probe will cause precious juices to drain, resulting in a dry finished product. We're happy to debunk this myth that needs to go!
a little water once browned to keep them from sticking.
The meat is then ground or sliced into small pieces and stuffed into a casing with other ingredients, such as breadcrumbs, seasoning and flavourings (e.g. spices.) Cheaper varieties of sausages also contain sausage meal (aka, fillers) that are usually made from wheat (or rice flour if labelled gluten-free).
Buy Fresh Sausage
Make sure you're buying fully-packaged, tightly sealed sausage that's either frozen or refrigerated, and always check the sell-by date to make sure your sausage will keep for a few days before you decide to cook it. Fresh uncooked sausage should be soft and pinkish in color.
The answer to this is yes! Pink sausage is not a sign that your sausage is undercooked. And so, as long as you have made sure to cook it to the right internal temperature – 160 F, you can guarantee that the pink sausage is safe to eat. Keep in mind that there should only be a small portion of the sausage that is pink.
Raw meat can carry germs like viruses and bacteria that can make you sick. These can transfer to our hands, cooking utensils, and other food. This is called "cross-contamination".
Tenderizing The Steaks
The first method, and arguably the fastest, is using a fork. Just go over the entire steak, puncturing holes all over. Then flip and repeat. The idea is that opening lots of holes helps moisture escape during cooking.
It also allows marinades to penetrate through the steak easily. Lastly, people poke holes on the steak to allow heat to enter the steak's center part. As a result, the steak will cook evenly and also reduce the cooking time on the grill. Basically, poking holes means less grill time and more time enjoying the steak.