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A Profitable Kind of Sausage

A sausage made from lean beef, pork, hog back fat, salt, saltpeter, pepper, coriander, and mustard, smoked and dried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

A Profitable Kind of Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mix the lean beef, pork, and hog back fat in a large bowl.

  2. Add the fine salt, refined saltpeter, ground white pepper, whole coriander seed, and whole mustard seed while mixing.

  3. Knead the mixture until well combined and form into loaves.

Stuff and dry

  1. Stuff the mixture tightly into soaked and washed No. 1 hog bung casings.

  2. Hang the sausages to dry until they show a bright red color.

Smoke and ripen

  1. Administer a slow cold smoke to the sausages.

  2. Store the finished sausages in a cool, dry place until properly ripened.

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. Coriander + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together967 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pork + mustardtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,445 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Beef + mustardtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the protein that binds the mixture and gives a firm, meaty structure.
Pork
Adds protein for binding and fat-meat balance for a tender, rich texture.
Hog back fat
Supplies fat that keeps the sausage moist and carries flavor through the mixture.
Refined saltpeter
Helps develop the bright red cured color and aids preservation during drying and ripening.
Whole coriander seed
Adds its citrusy, aromatic flavor to the sausage.
Whole mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma and flavor to the sausage.

The step that matters

Knead the mixture until well combined. Even distribution of salt and cure keeps preservation and color uniform. Kneading also extracts sticky proteins that bind the meat, so the sausage holds together when stuffed and dried.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, coriander, mustard. 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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