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Bologna Sausage

A cured sausage made from lean beef, pork or bacon, seasoned with salt, pepper, coriander, and smoked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Bologna Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Chop the lean beef and fat pork or bacon finely.

  2. Season the meat with 2½ tablespoons of coarse sea salt, 1 tablespoon of ground black pepper, and 1 teaspoon of ground coriander.

Stuff and shape

  1. Stuff the mixture into beef casings (middles or rounds).

  2. If using middles, make sausages 10 to 12 inches long; if using rounds, make them 12 to 15 inches long and tie the ends to form rings.

Smoke, cook and dry

  1. Smoke the sausages for 10 to 12 hours.

  2. Cook in boiling water until the sausages float.

  3. Dry the sausages on clean hay or straw in a cool place until needed.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Pepper + coriandertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,949 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Beef + coriandertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,016 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the main meaty body and firm bite of the sausage.
Fat pork or bacon
Adds fat for moisture and a juicier, more tender texture.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat and helps draw out proteins that bind the mixture.

The step that matters

Cook in boiling water until the sausages float. Heating gently and stopping once the sausages float helps set the filling without overcooking it, which would make it dry and rubbery. Going too long can split the casings.

Swap the coriander

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, pepper. 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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