Name: Sausages
Ingredients: Sausages; Lard or butter; Pickled red cabbage; Apples

Why it works: Cabbage and apple work together. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 235 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Sausages

Ingredients

Sausages
Lard or butter
Pickled red cabbage
Apples

Directions

Prick the sausages with a needle to prevent the skins from breaking.
Heat lard or butter in a pan.
Add the sausages and cook until browned and cooked through.
Garnish with pickled red cabbage or sliced apples that are browned.

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.

Cabbage + appletop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together235 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,706 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + cabbagetop 26% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,397 recipes

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