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Liver Wurst

A sausage made from hog's haslets, fat pork, onions, sage, salt, pepper, and meal.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Liver Wurst

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meats

  1. Remove all imperfect parts from the hogs' haslets and boil them in a pot of water until tender.

  2. Chop the haslets, liverlights, and heart very fine and set aside.

  3. In another pot, boil the fat pork until tender.

  4. Remove the skin and chop it fine.

Combine

  1. Mix the chopped pork with the chopped liver mixture in the pot with the water used to boil the pork.

  2. Discard the water from the haslets.

  3. Chop the onions and add them to the pot.

  4. Place the pot on the fire.

Season and thicken

  1. Season with sage, coarse sea salt, and pepper.

  2. Stir in the meal until the mixture is thick enough to fry.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Onion + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Hogs' haslets
Provide the main liver flavour and a fine, dense body to the sausage.
Fat pork
Adds fat and moisture, keeping the sausage soft and rich rather than dry.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften and cook down in the mixture.
Meal
Thickens the mixture as its starch absorbs liquid and swells when heated.

The step that matters

Stir in the meal until the mixture is thick enough to fry. Meal starch thickens as it heats and absorbs liquid. Stirring keeps it evenly mixed and stops it sticking and scorching on the bottom of the pot, while adding it gradually lets you stop at the right firmness.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, sage, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sage, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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