Name: Recipe for Bock Sausage
Ingredients: 33 pounds beef; 33 pounds veal; 33 pounds pork; 42 ounces coarse sea salt; 3 ounces cayenne pepper; 31 ounces white pepper; Optional: small dice of boiled bacon

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 ↓

Recipe for Bock Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

Chop the beef, veal, and pork together until fine.
Add the salt, cayenne pepper, and white pepper to the meat mixture.
If desired, mix in small dice of boiled bacon.

Form and smoke

Fill narrow sheep casings with the mixture and twist into pairs weighing about 4 ounces.
Smoke the sausages in hot smoke until they turn light yellow.

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.

Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,690 recipes

Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,930 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,784 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 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

Beef, veal, and pork: Provide the protein and fat that form the body and juiciness of the sausage.
Coarse sea salt: Seasons the meat and helps extract proteins that bind the mixture together.
Cayenne pepper: Adds heat and a sharp, spicy flavor.
White pepper: Adds a mild, earthy heat that seasons the meat without dark specks.