Name: Beef Sausage
Ingredients: 3 pounds raw round beef; 1 pound beef suet; ½ pint cold water; ½ tablespoon coarse sea salt; ⅓ teaspoon cayenne pepper; ½ teaspoon white pepper; 1 teaspoon sage; Flour for dredging

Why it works: Pepper and sage 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 ↓

Beef Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

Chop the beef and suet very fine.
Add the salt, cayenne, white pepper, sage, and cold water; mix thoroughly.

Form and fry

Form the mixture into small cakes.
Dredge the cakes with flour.
Fry the cakes for 5 minutes and serve very hot.

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.

Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,115 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
White pepper + sagetop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together119 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Pepper + white peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,478 recipes

Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

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

What each ingredient does

Raw round beef: Forms the main body of the sausage and gives it its meaty texture.
Beef suet: Adds fat that keeps the sausage juicy and rich as it cooks.
Flour: Coats the cakes so they brown and form a crisp outer crust when fried.
Sage: Contributes the herbal aroma that defines the sausage's flavor.