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Polish Style Sausage

A large sausage made from beef, pork, and trimmings, seasoned with majoram, pepper, flour, garlic, saltpeter, and sugar, then smoked.

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 ↓

Polish Style Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 120°F in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Combine all meats in a large mixing bowl.

  2. Add spices, flour, garlic, water, and ice to the meat mixture. Mix thoroughly until well combined.

Stuff and smoke

  1. Stuff the mixture into wide hog casings, about 8 inches long.

  2. Cook in a smokehouse at 120°F to 170°F, gradually increasing the temperature.

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. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pork head and cheek meat
Supplies fat and protein that bind the sausage and give it a rich, juicy body.
Pluck meat
Adds bulk and moisture to the filling, helping it stay tender after cooking.
Flour
Absorbs liquid and helps the filling hold together with a firmer, sliceable texture.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma and savory flavor to the sausage.
Saltpeter
Helps the meat keep its pink color and adds a cured flavor during smoking.

The step that matters

Gradually increasing the smokehouse temperature. Raising the heat slowly from 120°F to 170°F lets the sausage dry and cook evenly without the fat melting out or the outside cooking faster than the center. Rushing the heat can cause a greasy, unevenly cooked sausage.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, meat, pork, pepper, flour, sugar):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, meat, pork, pepper, flour, sugar. 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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