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Summer Sausage Formula

A cured sausage made from lean beef, pork, back fat, salt, pepper, saltpetre, and sugar, formed into loaves and smoked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Summer Sausage Formula

Ingredients

Directions

Mix and rest

  1. Chop the beef finely.

  2. Add the pork and chop together until medium fine.

  3. Add the back fat and chop all together for about two minutes.

  4. Mix in the salt, pepper, saltpetre, and sugar until well distributed.

  5. Form the mixture into loaves, ensuring to exclude all air.

  6. Refrigerate the loaves overnight.

Prepare the casings

  1. Prepare beef or hog bungs by washing and turning them in hot water.

  2. Trim off any fat from the gut without cutting holes.

  3. Wipe the gut dry with a clean cloth and turn it back.

  4. Stuff the mixture into the gut, taking care to exclude air.

Dry and smoke

  1. Hang the sausages in a dry place with good air circulation until they turn a pronounced red color.

  2. Cold smoke the sausages for 24 to 36 hours.

  3. Ensure the sausages do not come into contact with frost.

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

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + sugartop 32% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,401 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pork + sugartop 37% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,579 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

Pepper and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 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

Lean beef
Provides the main meaty structure and chewy bite of the sausage.
Lean pork
Adds body and juiciness to the mix, balancing the beef.
Back fat
Supplies fat that keeps the sausage moist and tender as it dries.
Saltpetre
Helps set the pronounced red color of the cured meat.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat and helps draw out moisture and preserve it.

The step that matters

Exclude air when forming loaves and stuffing. Trapped air pockets can spoil the meat and cause uneven drying, so pressing the mixture firmly and packing the casing tightly helps keep the sausage safe and consistent.

“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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