Skip to main content
Main

Parisian Ham Sausage

A cured sausage made from beef and ham with spices, smoked and boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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. Chop beef and ham separately.

  2. Add 3% fine salt, 5 oz. cane sugar, and 2 oz. saltpeter to the meat.

  3. Mix one-third of the spices with the beef and two-thirds with the pork.

  4. In summer, let the mixture sit in a cool room for 12 hours; in winter, for 2-3 days at 72°F.

Mix and stuff

  1. Chop the beef finely, then add the pork and spices, and chop together until the mixture is pea-sized.

  2. If the mixture is too loose, add 20-25 ID of meat.

  3. Stuff the mixture into veal bladders or beef guts, sealing tightly.

Hang, smoke and boil

  1. Hang the sausages in the air for 6 hours in summer or 24-36 hours in winter at 70°F.

  2. Smoke the sausages at 77°F until cherry red.

  3. Boil the sausages in water at a simmering point: bladders for 45-60 minutes, beef guts for 1.5-1.75 hours. Avoid agitation while boiling to prevent tearing.

  4. To remove wrinkles, dip in boiling water for 10 seconds, then dry with a cloth. Rub with olive oil for a glossy finish.

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  4. Ginger + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,725 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Ginger + macetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides lean meat bulk and a firm, sliceable texture in the sausage.
Ham or shoulder
Adds fat, which gives the sausage moisture and a tender, juicy bite.
Fine salt
Draws out moisture and helps the meat bind and hold its texture.
Powdered saltpeter
Helps the meat keep a cured red colour during hanging and smoking.
Cane sugar
Balances the salt and supports curing and browning of the surface.

The step that matters

Boil at a simmering point without agitation. Boiling vigorously or stirring the sausages can split the casings, letting fat and juices escape and leaving the texture dry and uneven.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Cinnamonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, sugar, ginger, allspice, leek, olive. 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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipesBeef BrothBeef Broth67 recipes