Name: Rabbit Sausage in Texas
Ingredients: 5 to 7 pounds rabbit, dressed; 1 pound fresh pork; coarse sea salt; red pepper; black pepper; sage

Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Rabbit Sausage in Texas

Ingredients

Directions

Trim the meat off the bones of the rabbit.
Grind the rabbit meat and fresh pork together using a sausage mill.
Season the mixture with coarse sea salt, red pepper, black pepper, and sage to taste.
Stuff the seasoned mixture into sausage casings if desired.

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.

Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Rabbit + porktop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together832 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,527 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Rabbit + sagetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).
Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

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