Why it works: Sage and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓
Pork Sausages
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Clean the sausage casings and cut them into convenient lengths.
Chop the pork fat and lean together.
Season the mixture with powdered sage, pepper, and coarse sea salt.
Fill and finish
Fill the casings with the meat mixture and tie them at each end with pack thread.
Dust the sausages with flour.
Fry or stew the sausages until cooked through.
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.
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Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,388 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,527 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
-
Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,115 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,121 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together50,459 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pork fat
- Provides fat that keeps the sausage juicy and tender as it cooks.
- Pork lean
- Forms the meaty body and structure of the sausage.
- Powdered sage
- Adds a savory, aromatic herb flavor to the meat.
- Flour
- Dusted on the outside to help the sausages brown when fried.
Swap the sage
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper, flour):
- Jalapenofits better
- Marjoramfits about as well
- Sagethe original
- Thymefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, 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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