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Curing of Pork Sausage

Contains nitrate of soda, which should be used with caution.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Curing of Pork Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Mix 4 lbs of coarse sea salt and 4 lbs of nitrate of soda for every 100 lbs of meat.

  2. If using fresh meat, increase salt to 5-6 lbs depending on the amount.

  3. For another method, mix 20 lbs of coarse sea salt, 8 oz of nitrate of soda, and 1 lb of granulated sugar for every 100 lbs of meat.

  4. Pack the mixture tightly in containers, ensuring the meat is cold.

  5. Store at 33 to 35°F (1 to 2°C).

  6. For seasoning, use 2% salt, 1/10th as much white or red pepper, equal sage, and a light sprinkling of nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, and allspice.

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. Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,917 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Cinnamon + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  3. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Sage + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together642 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, sugar, pepper, sage, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, sugar, pepper, sage, nutmeg, cinnamon, clove. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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