Italian Sausage Cooked in a Hot Pot

Italian sausages weighing 1/4 lb each cooked in a Hot Pot, using a steamer basket to hold the sausages away from the bottom of the pot.

Insert steamer into Hot Pot
Add 2 cups water
Arrange raw Italian sausages in a criss-cross pattern in the steamer
Plug in the pot and set heat control to about halfway (may adjust later as needed)

Cook for at least 20 minutes. Heat will come and go; if it stays off too long, wake it up with a bit more cold water, and/or elevate the heat control.

Sausages will be well cooked but rather grey. That's the down side of hot pot cookery: no way to brown anything.

Remove sausages with tongs. Drain the pot, take out the strainer, add a jar of spaghetti sauce and reduce heat control to low. Return sausages to the pot and allow sauce and sausages to warm together for 15 or more minutes. Serve over pasta.

To see a full set of photographs showing how this dish was made, go to this set on flickr.    (It will open in a new tab or window; to return to this page, just close it.) The small pictures are thumbnails; click on each one to see it full-size, and to read the comments under it.  If you prefer to use the slideshow feature, you won't see the captions unless you click on "show info" (top right).