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Parisian Ham Sausage

A sausage made from coarsely chopped beef and pork ham, seasoned with salt, sugar, spices, and smoked before boiling.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,620 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Parisian Ham Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Combine beef and pork in separate bowls, adding 1⅓ lbs salt and 5 oz sugar to each.

  2. Mix one-third of the spices with the beef and two-thirds with the pork. Let sit in a cool room for 12 hours in summer or 2‑3 days in winter.

  3. Chop the beef finely, then add the pork and remaining spices. Chop together until the mixture resembles a marbled appearance.

  4. If needed, add a little water and mix thoroughly.

Stuff, hang and smoke

  1. Stuff the mixture into veal bladders or beef guts, packing tightly.

  2. Hang the sausages in a cool place for 6 hours to develop color.

  3. Smoke the sausages at 77 °F until they turn cherry red.

Boil and serve

  1. Boil the sausages immediately after smoking. Bladders should boil for 45‑60 minutes, while beef guts should boil gently for 1.5 to 1.75 hours.

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. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  3. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Allspice + leektop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together81 recipes

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

  5. White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides lean meat structure and the main body of the sausage.
Pork ham or shoulder
Adds fat that gives the sausage moisture and a tender texture.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out meat proteins so the mixture binds and holds moisture.
Cane sugar
Adds mild sweetness and helps balance the salt and spices.
Powdered potash
Helps the meat develop its characteristic red color during curing.

The step that matters

Boil right after smoking, for the stated time. Boiling for too long or too hard can split casings and dry out the meat, while too little time leaves the sausage underheated. Following the given times for each casing type keeps the texture juicy and the interior safely cooked.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, sugar, ginger, mace, allspice, leek):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, sugar, ginger, mace, allspice, leek. 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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