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Sausage Meat

A mixture of lean and fat pork with breadcrumbs, spices, herbs, shallots, egg, and seasonings, formed into cakes or used for stuffing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sausage Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. In a bowl, combine the chopped lean pork and fat pork.

  2. Add breadcrumbs, nutmeg, allspice, mace, lemon peel, sage, parsley, thyme, shallots, beaten egg, pepper, and salt.

  3. Mix well with your hands or pound in a mortar.

Shape and cook

  1. Form the mixture into cakes and broil them, or stuff into cleaned pig entrails.

  2. Alternatively, use the mixture to stuff a calf's liver for roasting.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Allspice + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,077 recipes

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

  5. Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean pork and fat pork
Lean meat gives the sausage its body, while fat keeps it moist and juicy as it cooks.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb juices and fat, helping the mixture hold together and stay tender.
Egg
Binds the meat and crumbs together so the mixture holds its shape.
Shallots
Add mild onion-like sweetness and aroma that deepens during cooking.
Sage and thyme
Herbs that add aromatic, savoury flavour that suits pork.

The step that matters

Mix well with your hands or pound in a mortar. Working the meat and binders thoroughly distributes fat and seasoning evenly and develops a cohesive texture, so the mixture holds its shape and cooks into a uniform, tender sausage.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, nutmeg, allspice, lemon, sage, parsley, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, nutmeg, allspice, lemon, sage, parsley, thyme. 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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