Ingredient

Sausages

A sausage is minced meat, fat, salt and usually a binder in a casing. The variables that decide whether one is good are the meat content, the fat, and the coarseness of the mince — and the variable that decides whether it cooks well is heat, which should be lower and slower than most people use.

Reading a sausage

The meat content percentage is printed on the pack and is the most useful number on it. British sausages run from around forty-two per cent — the legal minimum for something sold as a pork sausage — up to ninety-plus. The difference in eating quality across that range is enormous.

What makes up the rest is mostly rusk or breadcrumb and water. Rusk is not adulteration in itself; a traditional British sausage contains it deliberately, and it absorbs fat and juice and gives the characteristic soft, slightly bready texture that distinguishes a banger from a continental sausage. But there is a great deal of difference between a well-made sausage with some rusk and one that is largely rusk, water and emulsified trimmings.

The other thing worth looking at is the mince. Hold the sausage up: you should be able to see distinct pieces of meat and fat. A uniform pink paste means finely emulsified meat, which gives a bouncy, uniform, hot-dog texture. That is correct for a frankfurter and is not what a good butcher's sausage looks like.

Fat matters as much as meat. A very lean sausage is dry and disappointing. Around twenty to thirty per cent fat is what makes one succulent.

Cooking them properly

The commonest mistake is heat that is too high.

1. Take them out of the fridge twenty minutes before cooking if you can.
2. Do not prick them. Pricking lets fat and juice escape, which is the opposite of what you want. The idea that it stops them bursting is backwards — they burst because the heat was too high.
3. Use a moderate heat, not a fierce one, in a heavy pan with a little oil. Sausages need to cook through, and a high heat browns the outside long before the middle is ready.
4. Turn them regularly, so they colour evenly on all sides. Ten to fifteen minutes is normal for a decent-sized sausage.
5. Or roast them in the oven at a moderate temperature, which is easier for numbers and gives an even result.
6. Or start them in a pan with a splash of water, lid on, to steam them through, then take the lid off and brown them. Fast, reliable, and it stops the skin catching before the middle cooks.
7. Let them rest a couple of minutes before serving. FoodHQ does not publish safe cooking temperatures or keeping times. Those are set by a food safety authority rather than by a cookery writer, and in the UK the Food Standards Agency is the one to consult.

The main styles

Cumberland

Coarse pork, heavily peppered, traditionally sold in a long coil rather than links. Protected status for the Traditional Cumberland Sausage.

Lincolnshire

Coarse pork with sage as the defining herb.

Toulouse

French, coarse pork, garlic and wine, minimal binder. The sausage for a cassoulet.

Italian salsiccia

Coarse pork with fennel seed and often chilli. Excellent squeezed out of its skin into a pasta sauce.

Chorizo (fresh)

Spanish, paprika-heavy, soft, needs cooking. Different from cured chorizo — see chorizo.

Merguez

North African, lamb or beef, harissa and spices, thin. Cooks in minutes and burns fast because of the spice paste.

Bratwurst and frankfurter

German, finely emulsified, giving the smooth springy texture. A different tradition from the British coarse sausage, not a worse one.

Black pudding and haggis

Related but distinct — blood and offal sausages with oats or barley, and their own pages worth of technique.

What goes wrong

• Split skins. Heat too high. The filling expands faster than the casing can stretch. Lower the heat.
• Burnt outside, raw inside. Same cause. Sausages want moderate heat and time.
• Dry and crumbly. Low fat content, or overcooked. Buy better sausages.
• Bouncy and uniform. Finely emulsified meat — a texture choice rather than a fault, and not what most people want from a butcher's sausage.
• Stuck to the pan and torn. Pan not hot enough at the start, or moved too soon.
• Grey. Cooked in a crowded pan or with too much liquid, so they steamed throughout instead of browning at the end.

Common questions