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Beef Sausage

A fried beef sausage made from finely chopped beef and suet with salt, pepper, sage, and water, dredged in flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,115 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Beef Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the beef and suet very fine.

  2. Add the seasoning and cold water, then mix thoroughly.

Cook and serve

  1. Form the mixture into small cakes and dredge with flour.

  2. Fry the cakes for six minutes.

  3. Serve very hot.

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. Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. White pepper + sagetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together119 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Beef + sagetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together847 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Beef + flourtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together10,677 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Beef + white peppertop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together616 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Beef and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,677 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Beef round
Provides the lean meat that forms the body of the sausage.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the cakes moist and tender as they cook.
Cold water
Adds moisture that helps the mixture bind and stay juicy.
Flour
Coats the cakes so they brown during frying and hold their shape.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes for six minutes. Frying needs enough heat to brown the outside and cook the centre through. Too little heat leaves the surface pale and greasy, while too much can char the flour coating before the meat inside is cooked.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, sage, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, sage, flour. 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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