Every week, FanHouse's Pete Holiday whips up a tasty dish for your next tailgate, and makes a god-awful mess in the process, to bring you Tailgate Central. This week, however, Pete has graciously allowed FanHouse's Mark Hasty to yammer on about some sort of sausage or something.
Twenty-five years ago, the bratwurst was both a regional and an ethnic food in this country. If you weren't from a community in the Midwest with a sizable German-American population, you'd likely never eaten one. Now, though, the brat is everywhere, and tailgating is one of the big reasons why.
Bratwurst is a little trickier to cook than burgers and hot dogs, however. You know this is true if you've ever been
handed a brat which was burnt on the outside but still oinking in the middle. Even if you're a total klutz, however, it's still possible to learn how to make a brat as tasty as any you'd find outside Lambeau Field on a game day. You just need to know how to buy them, how to cook them, and how to serve them.BUYING BRATS: You have three basic choices. Precooked brats (usually sold as "stadium brats") have been steamed or boiled before being packaged. All you have to do to them is throw them on the grill and brown them a little. Smoked brats are also fully cooked and just need the same treatment, though to me, they don't really taste like brats.
If you want the best results, though, you've got to start from raw.
