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To Make Good Summer Sausage

A cured sausage made from lean beef, pork, pork fat, salt, pepper, saltpeter, and sugar.

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 ↓

To Make Good Summer Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Trim beef chunks and pork trimmings free of fat and sinew.

  2. Cut beef into small pieces and chop with pork trimmings until fine.

  3. Add pork fat cut into thin strips and chop together for about 2 minutes.

  4. Mix in the seasoning evenly after adding the lean pork.

Shape and rest

  1. Work the mixture into loaves by hand to remove air.

  2. Refrigerate the loaves overnight.

Stuff and hang

  1. Stuff the mixture into well-soaked beef or hog casings, ensuring no air is trapped.

  2. Hang the stuffed sausages in a dry place with good air circulation.

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. Meat + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,208 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Beef + meattop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,533 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. 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 chucks
Lean meat provides the protein that binds the mixture and gives the sausage its firm texture.
Pork trimmings
Lean pork supplies protein for binding and a savoury meaty flavour.
Pork shoulder or neck fat
Fat adds moisture and juiciness and carries flavour through the sausage.
Coarse sea salt
Salt draws out and dissolves meat proteins so the mixture binds and it helps preserve the sausage.
Saltpeter
Acts as a curing agent that helps preserve the meat and gives it a pink colour.
Granulated sugar
Adds a little sweetness that balances the saltiness and rounds out the flavour.

The step that matters

Stuff without trapped air. Air pockets left in the casing can spoil the sausage, encourage mould, and dry unevenly. Working the mixture by hand and packing the casing firmly helps remove them.

“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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