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Thick Bologna Sausage

A preserved sausage made from bull meat, beef trimmings, pork trimmings, and spices, smoked and boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 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 ↓

Thick Bologna Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 175°F (80°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the meat

  1. Chop the bull meat and beef trimmings coarsely.

  2. Mix in the coarse sea salt and saltpetre.

  3. Place the mixture in a cold area for two days.

Grind and mix

  1. Chop the mixture finely.

  2. Add spices.

  3. Add the fresh pork trimmings and clear pork fat.

  4. Chop coarsely.

  5. Dissolve cereal in cold water.

  6. Mix it with the meat.

Stuff, smoke and cook

  1. Stuff mixture into casings.

  2. Smoke sausages slowly for 2 hours until they are reddish.

  3. Heat water to 175°F (80°C).

  4. Boil sausages for 1½ to 2 hours, depending on thickness.

Cool and dry

  1. Remove the sausages and cool them in cold water for 20 minutes.

  2. Hang sausages to dry.

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. Coriander + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Allspice + coriandertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together393 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Pepper + coriandertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,949 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

What each ingredient does

Bull meat
Provides the lean protein that forms the firm body of the sausage.
Saltpetre
Helps the meat keep its reddish cured colour and gives the cured flavour.
Clear pork fat
Adds moisture and richness so the sausage stays juicy and tender.
Fresh pork trimmings
Adds fat and flavour to the meat mixture, keeping it moist.
Cereal
Absorbs water and binds the meat so it holds together when sliced.
Black pepper
Adds sharp aroma and a mild heat to the finished sausage.

The step that matters

Boil at 175°F (80°C), not at a rolling boil. Water held just below boiling heats the sausage gently. A rolling boil can split the casings and make the meat tough and crumbly.

Swap the garlic

The recipe marks garlic as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, beef, pork, pepper, allspice, coriander, mace):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, beef, pork, pepper, allspice, coriander, mace. 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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