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Sausage Department

A liver and belly-fat sausage made with eggs, spices, and mashed shallots, cooked in a tin mold.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,476 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

Sausage Department

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mold

  1. Prepare a tin mold measuring 12 inches long, 5 inches high, and 6 inches wide, with a tight-fitting cover.

  2. Grease the inside of the mold with a thin layer of lard.

Make and fill

  1. In a large bowl, combine the chopped liver, belly-fat, eggs, salt, pepper, thyme, mace, cloves, and mashed shallots.

  2. Knead the mixture well and fill the mold in batches, pressing down to eliminate air bubbles.

  3. Fill the mold to the rim, cover with the lard cover, and then place the metal cover on top, greased.

Cook, cool and serve

  1. Tie the covers tightly and place the mold in boiling water for 24 hours.

  2. After cooking, let it cool for 12 hours.

  3. To unmold, briefly place the mold in warm water, remove the cover, and carefully take out the sausage.

  4. For presentation, wrap the sausage in tin foil once cooled.

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. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Clove + shallottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  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

Hog's liver
Forms the main body of the sausage and gives it its rich, meaty flavour.
Belly-fat
Adds fat that keeps the sausage moist and smooth as it cooks.
Eggs
Bind the chopped meat and fat so the mixture holds together when sliced.
Fine salt
Seasons the mixture and helps draw out flavour from the liver.
Shallots
Add a mild, sweet aromatic onion flavour once roasted and mashed.

The step that matters

Pressing to eliminate air bubbles. Trapped air pockets can leave holes or voids in the set sausage and let it spoil faster. Kneading and pressing the mixture firmly into the mold removes them before the long cooking.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, egg, thyme, mace, clove, shallot):

  1. Winter savoryfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, egg, thyme, mace, clove, shallot. 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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