Name: Beef and Pork Sausage
Ingredients: 65 pounds beef trimmings (from heads, necks, briskets, flanks, shanks); 35 pounds fat pork trimmings (from hams, shoulders, sides, heads, hocks); 2 pounds coarse sea salt; 8 ounces white pepper; 4 ounces allspice; hog casings

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 ↓

Beef and Pork Sausage

Ingredients

65 pounds beef trimmings (from heads, necks, briskets, flanks, shanks)
35 pounds fat pork trimmings (from hams, shoulders, sides, heads, hocks)
2 pounds coarse sea salt
8 ounces white pepper
4 ounces allspice
hog casings

Directions

Grind the beef and pork trimmings finely.
Stuff the ground meat mixture into hog casings.
Season the mixture with coarse sea salt, white pepper, and allspice.

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).
Pork + hamtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,638 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
White pepper + allspicetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together272 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Beef + hamtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,729 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).
Pork + allspicetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,194 recipes

Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).