Name: For Making Sausage
Ingredients: 30 pounds sausage meat; 8 ounces coarse sea salt; 1.5 ounces summer savory; 2.25 ounces sage; 2 ounces black pepper

Why it works: Summer savory and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 237 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

For Making Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

Select and chop the sausage meat finely, removing all gristle and tough parts.
In a large bowl, combine the sausage meat with the salt, summer savory, sage, and freshly ground black pepper.
Knead the seasoning into the sausage meat thoroughly. You can add more sage and summer savory, but do not add more salt.

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.

Summer savory + sagetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together237 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Summer savory + peppertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together671 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together8,777 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Meat + summer savorytop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together73 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Sausage meat: Forms the body of the dish and carries all the seasoning.
Coarse sea salt: Seasons the meat and helps draw out moisture and bind the mixture.
Summer savory: Adds a peppery, herbal aroma that flavours the sausage.
Sage: Adds a warm, earthy aroma characteristic of sausage flavour.

The step that matters

Kneading the seasoning into the meat. Salt dissolves proteins in the meat so it becomes sticky and binds well. Kneading thoroughly spreads salt and herbs evenly, so the sausage holds together and tastes consistent throughout.

Swap the summer savory

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

Thymefits better
Marjoramfits better
Rosemaryfits better
Summer savorythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, 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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For Making Sausage