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A Test on Liver Sausage

A sausage made from beef livers, pork cheeks, pork necks, pork cuttings, ham skins, spices, salt, onions, flour, water, and round guts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 Test on Liver Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 210°F (99°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cook

  1. Combine all ingredients in a large mixing container.

  2. Cook the mixture at 210°F (99°C) for 45 minutes.

Finish

  1. Chop the cooked mixture thoroughly and allow it to cool.

  2. Stuff the mixture into the round guts to form sausages.

  3. Skim off any grease that rises to the surface.

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Liver + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Marjoram + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef livers
Provides the main body and rich, deep flavor of the liver sausage.
Lean pork cheeks
Adds meaty texture and savory flavor to the mixture.
Fat pork necks
Adds fat for moistness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel.
Onions
Contribute sweetness and aroma as they cook into the mixture.
H. m. p. flour
Helps bind the mixture and gives it a firmer, sliceable body.
Marjoram
Adds a fragrant, herbal aroma that complements the pork and liver.

The step that matters

Cook at a steady 210°F for 45 minutes. Cooking at a controlled temperature gently cooks the mixture through without boiling it hard, which helps keep the texture smooth and stops fat from separating out of the emulsion. Skimming rendered grease afterward keeps the sausage from tasting greasy.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, liver, pork, ham, marjoram, onion, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, liver, pork, ham, marjoram, onion, flour. 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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