Name: Berliner Blood Sausage
Ingredients: 50 pounds suitable filler; 35 pounds raw solid bacon, cut into small cubes; 8 pounds backfat skins; 7 pounds fresh hog blood, strained; ½ pound coarse sea salt; 7 ounces whole white pepper; ¼ ounce cloves; 3 ounces pimento; 1/3 ounce marjoram

Why it works: Clove and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,075 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Berliner Blood Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 162°F (72°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

Scald the bacon cubes with boiling water.
Add the backfat skins to the bacon.
Incorporate the strained hog blood into the mixture.
Mix in the salt, white pepper, cloves, pimento, and marjoram thoroughly.

Stuff and cook

Stuff the mixture into medium casings, being careful not to overfill.
Place the sausages in water at 162°F (72°C) and puncture with a needle to release air.
Heat for one hour at this temperature.
Cool the sausages in cold water and dry them in the air.
Hang the sausages in smoke for 24 hours to 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.

Clove + marjoramtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,075 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
White pepper + marjoramtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together134 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
White pepper + clovetop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together752 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh hog blood: Binds the filling and sets into a firm, dense texture when heated.
Bacon: Adds fat and richness, keeping the sausage moist and flavorful during cooking.
Backfat skins: Adds fat and soft body, keeping the filling moist and tender.
Filler: Adds bulk and body, giving the sausage its structure and slice.
Whole white pepper: Adds warm, sharp aroma that seasons the filling throughout.

The step that matters

Heating the stuffed sausages at 162°F (72°C). Holding the sausages at this steady temperature cooks the blood and fat through without boiling, which would cause the casings to split and the filling to become crumbly. Overfilling the casings also risks bursting during heating.