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Munchener Beer-wuerstel

A German sausage made from fat pork trimmings and spices, smoked for six days.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Munchener Beer-wuerstel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Mix the spices with the meat until a homogeneous mass forms.

  2. Fill the mixture into narrow hog casings.

  3. Divide the sausages into lengths of about 4 inches, tying them to leave a ball-shaped piece between every two.

Dry and smoke

  1. Dry the sausages in the open air during winter.

  2. Smoke the sausages for 6 days using hardwood sawdust.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Pork + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

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

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Fat pork trimmings
Provides the fat that gives the sausage its juiciness and rich texture.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat and helps draw out moisture and bind the mass.
Whole black pepper
Adds sharp, aromatic heat that flavours the sausage.
Sugar
Adds mild sweetness and helps browning during smoking.
Mace
Contributes warm, aromatic flavour characteristic of the sausage.
Cloves
Contributes strong, warm aroma that flavours the sausage.

The step that matters

Smoke the sausages for 6 days using hardwood sawdust. Smoke is absorbed best by a surface that is partly dried, so the sausages should first dry in the air. Smoking too early can leave a sooty or bitter surface and uneven colour.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper, sugar, clove):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, sugar, clove. 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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