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Brunswick Mett Sausage

A cured pork sausage seasoned with salt, pepper, sugar, and saltpeter, then smoked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,121 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Brunswick Mett Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Mix the salt, white pepper, cane sugar, and powdered saltpeter in a bowl.

  2. Chop the pork into pieces about the size of a walnut.

  3. Add the spice mixture to the chopped meat and continue chopping until the pieces are about the size of a pea. Turn the mixture upside down on the block several times while chopping.

Stuff and cure

  1. Stuff the mixture tightly into narrow hog casings, aiming for 1 lb to 1½ lb per piece, and tie the ends together.

  2. Dry the sausages for about a week.

Smoke

  1. Smoke the sausages in cold light smoke until they turn reddish‑yellow.

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. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Pork + sugartop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,579 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Pepper and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lean pork
Provides the protein base and the fat that gives the sausage its texture.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat, helping it keep during drying.
Powdered saltpeter
Helps the meat develop its cured color and preserves it during drying.
Cane sugar
Adds mild sweetness and balances the salt in the cure.
White ground pepper
Adds sharp aroma and gentle heat to the sausage.

The step that matters

Chopping the meat to a pea size. Chopping evenly to the stated size distributes salt and cure through the meat and gives a uniform, firm texture; uneven pieces cure unevenly and can spoil in spots.

“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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