Sausage Links in the Instant Pot

There is a post to the Animals Spotted page today about Egyptian Geese.

Granted, this dish doesn’t look very exciting, but I can assure you that it was really a very satisfying and delicious lunch. I added sauerkraut and apples to the noodles as they heated, with a good sprinkling of caraway seeds (after I took the photo!).

I think I probably had a salad of field greens and tomatoes with it, since that was the “program” nearly every day last week.  I had a big box of the field greens, and we ate them at nearly every lunch.

I tried something entirely new – at least to me.  Instead of cooking the sausages in the usual way, I tried them out in the InstantPot.  Usually I put them in a big frying pan with some water to cook them through, and then, when the water had all evaporated, I would brown them by rolling them around for a while in the resulting grease that cooks out of them .  This produces a pretty dry sausage, and I was looking for a way to make them a bit more moist.

There are two kinds shown below.  There are ten of the beer brats in the bottom layers, and the five top ones are hot Italian links.  As you can see, I staggered them, but otherwise, just piled them up on a rack in the InstantPot and put about a cup of water in the bottom of the pan.

I set the cook time for twenty minutes, but by the time it had come up to pressure, and the pressure had dropped, about an hour had elapsed.  This seemed like a reasonable amount of time, especially since it could be done at any time, and the sausages reheated for serving forth.

Cook’s effort was equal to just about nil.  Open the packages and stick ’em in the pot.  Punch buttons.  Go away and do something fun.

As you can see, this produced fifteen sausages that were used in all sorts of dishes and pizzas.

BONUS:  The broth you see at the bottom was VERY flavorful, and I used it to make lentil/split pea/barley soup (1) that was very delicious.  I added some sautéed celery, carrots, and onion to the soup.  Coincidentally, I had made a loaf of Country Wheat Bread, and the combination was just perfect.

(1) I make this sort of soup in a Nissan-Thermos vacuum bottle, which takes almost no effort at all.  Briefly, you preheat the vacuum bottle with boiling water, pour it out, and then put in the grains/legumes.  Bring the water back to the boil and pour the appropriate amount into the vacuum bottle and cap it.  Put it on its side, slightly elevated, so that the water and legumes are evenly distributed.  Leave it alone for several hours.

When you are ready to make the soup, sauté the veggies and add the contents of the vacuum bottle.  A bit more cooking is sometimes required, but usually I’ve found that the legumes and barley are perfect at that point, retaining their shape, yet soft.  If you prefer the mushier consistency of canned “split pea soup”, then you may want to cook them a bit more.

If you have bits of meat leftover, now is the time to put them to good use.  This goes for any other bits of veggies that might be lurking in your refrigerator.

I usually serve it over rice, because we like rice, but the barley is sufficient grain, really.  Crispy herb bread is also very nice, but Triscuits or other crackers will do!

Note:  Although I use this “soak” method for a lot of grains and legumes, I have NEVER been successful in making white rice come out right.  Brown rice is perfect, but the white always comes out inedibly gummy.  Warning!

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