Food We Eat at Home: To Drain or Not to Drain the Sausage Fat?

Here's last night's dinner: hash. We had leftover boiled potatoes from the heavenly mashed potatoes Brian made the other night and decided to throw it together with some green pepper, onions, tomatoes, cumin and salt and pepper. Oh, and chicken andouille sausage (how can I forget the sausage? I love sausage.). We had leftover roasted corn and forgot to include it, but it was mighty tasty as is.

The idea for the meal was mine, but Brian ended up doing most of the chopping and sauteeing. Cumin was his idea. Here's where the disagreement came in: to drain or not to drain the sausage fat? He heated the sausage up first and was geared up to dump the rest of the ingredients in the pan. I make a panicky gross face. The sight of all that grease -- even if they are relatively lean links at 4 grams! -- was nasty. Why add weight to your food?

I knew why. Because it would be amazing. I acquiesced, but he drained it anyway. And you know what? It was awesome.

I knew the fattier version would taste great, too, but sometimes you're in the mood for a lot of grease, and other times you're not. When we cook at home, I'm usually not.

Some couples argue about things like the toilet seat or cleaning. Us? We'll debate sausage fat. I love it.