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Sausages, an Oxford Receipt

A sausage made from pork, veal, suet, soaked roll, eggs, sage, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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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 ↓

Sausages, an Oxford Receipt

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Pound the pork and veal separately in a mortar.

Mix and shape

  1. Mix the pork and veal together with the suet, soaked roll, beaten eggs, sage, pepper, and salt.

  2. Pass the mixture through a sausage machine.

  3. Shape into cakes or rolls.

Fry

  1. Fry in lard, or coat with egg and breadcrumbs and fry.

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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Pork + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  3. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Veal + sagetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork
Provides the lean meat that forms the main body of the sausage.
Veal
Adds tenderness and mild flavour along with its fat content.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the sausage moist and juicy during frying.
Eggs
Bind the meat mixture so it holds together when shaped and fried.
Roll
Soaked bread absorbs moisture and keeps the filling soft and light.

The step that matters

Pass the mixture through a sausage machine. Working the meat too much can make it tough and dense, so it should be processed just until evenly combined. Keeping the mixture cold helps the fat stay distinct and the texture stay tender.

Swap the sage

The recipe marks sage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, veal, egg, pepper):

  1. Sagethe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Thymefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, veal, egg, pepper. 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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