Saucisson chaud — France

Saucisson chaud is a warm cooking sausage from Lyon, made of coarsely ground pork seasoned with pepper and sometimes studded with pistachios or shaved truffle, poached rather than cured or smoked. Unlike dry-cured saucisson, it is meant to be eaten hot, straight after cooking, and does not keep for more than a day or two once sliced. The dish is associated with Lyon's bouchons, the informal restaurants that serve the city's working-class cuisine, and appears on menus alongside quenelles and andouillette. It is also a common feature of family Sunday lunches in the wider Lyon region, where a whole sausage is often bought from a local charcutier rather than made at home. Preparation involves poaching the whole sausage gently in water kept at a bare simmer, never a full boil, so the casing does not split, for around forty minutes depending on its thickness. It is then sliced thick and served with a warm potato salad tossed in vinaigrette and shallots, with lentils in a mustard dressing, or wrapped in brioche dough and baked as saucisson brioché, a festive variant often served in slices as a starter. What sets it apart is the coarse pork grind and the pistachio studding, which distinguish it from other French cooking sausages such as those from Morteau or Montbéliard, smoked and associated with Franche-Comté; it is served with lentils or potatoes rather than sauerkraut, and eaten as a hot main course rather than a cold charcuterie slice.