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Morta-della Sausage

A cured sausage made from pork, beef, fat, spices, and optional wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and beef 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 ↓

Morta-della Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Use all fresh meats.

  2. Grind pork and beef through a 1/16-inch plate.

  3. Process in a silent cutter for 10 minutes.

  4. Spread meat on racks in a cooler for two days.

Mix and stuff

  1. Mix in a mixer for 3 minutes.

  2. Stuff into small beef bladders.

Smoke and dry

  1. Smoke in a smokehouse for 12 hours at 150°F (65°C).

  2. Hang in a dry room at 60°F (15°C) for two weeks.

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. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Garlic + winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Pork + garlictop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  4. Beef + garlictop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,165 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  5. Beef + winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethylphenol (must).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean pork trimmings
Provides the main meat body and structure once ground and emulsified.
Lean beef trimmings
Adds meaty flavour and firmness to the sausage body.
Skinned fat cheeks
Supplies fat that gives juiciness and a smooth texture in the finished sausage.
Saltpetre
Sets the pink cured colour and adds the characteristic cured flavour.
Garlic
Contributes aroma and savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Processing in the silent cutter. Chopping the meat and fat finely while keeping the mixture cold lets fat and protein bind into a smooth emulsion. If the mixture warms, the fat can smear and separate, leaving a greasy, crumbly texture.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, beef, garlic, sugar, wine):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Gingerfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, beef, garlic, sugar, wine. 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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