I bought some uncooked sweet Italian link sausages from Trader Joe’s so I could add a couple to a soup I was making. Now I have a few left over and I’d like to boil or broil them up and eat them on a bun.
The problem is my cheap meat thermometer has been acting wonky. It appears to sense heat and display a temperature but when I’ve used it with Italian sausages in the past it never got up to 160 degrees. It seemed to stall at around 140 - 145 degrees.
So I just kept boiling and boiling them. Finally after 30 minutes or more at a rolling boil I thought, “Damn, these things have GOT to be over 160 by now!” So I ate them and didn’t die.
How long does one normally need to boil raw pork sausages? At what point can I be reasonable sure they’ve cooked to a high enough temperature? I don’t mind if they’re a little overcooked, I just want to be safe.
NOTE 1: I am only looking for ballpark advice. Obviously no one can say precisely how long I need to cook my sausages on my stove in my pan to insure they are safe to eat. You are all absolved of any responsibility for my health.
NOTE 2: Yes, I need to get a good meat thermometer and I know exactly which one I want. The Thermapen from ThermoWorks. I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.
Boil? I always grill mine. Don’t need no meat thermometer that way, just grill them until their nicely browned and the juice is starting to squirt out.
Besides, today’s pork is pretty harmless. Not like it was 50 years ago when the rules got beaten into everybody.
I wouldn’t boil sausages, pan fry or grill. Either way, I cook until I figure they’re nearly done, then split them longways. For some reason I like them split like that. It’s also handy for checking if they’re still pink. But more because I can get more brown on them and the browning is the best part.
I sous vide mine but never to more than 160 deg. F. I like mine at 140 deg. F, but I make the overdone ones for my wife. Heck, I take pork tenderloin to only 132 deg. F in the sous vide bath. Your chances of getting trichinosis from commercial pork is just about zero point nothing.
I haven’t thought of meat thermometers and sausages together. You’d have to pierce them to measure the temperature, right? I think you have a fine experiment going. You have established that a half hour boil is long enough. Maybe creep that time down as you go forward, and see how that goes. Once a batch makes you get a little sick, or you have to run to the bathroom, you have the lower limit set.
Do check the calibration on your meat thermometer. Boil some water, and stick the thermometer in, it should rise to – shockingly – approximately 210 F (since I doubt it has markings to read 212.) If it truly gets stuck at a lower temperature, its just no good. If the calibration is off, that is, it reads a diff temperature consistently, you can possibly re-calibrate. When to should read 210, you use a pliers to twist a nut just under the dial until it reads correctly. That’s how everyone I’ve owned works anyway.
Parboil for five minutes then transfer to a grill until the skin starts getting crispy and is starting to develop little blackened bits. They’ll be fine.
As mentioned above, today’s pork is very safe. So grill away. If you are feeling paranoid, halfway through the cooking process split the sausage lengthwise and get some grillage on the inside as well.
