Name: Veal Sausages
Ingredients: 1 pound lean veal; 1 pound bacon fat; 4 anchovies; 4 hard-boiled egg yolks; 1 teaspoon powdered sage; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; juice of 1 Seville orange

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 ↓

Veal Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Combine veal and bacon fat in a bowl.
Add anchovies, egg yolks, sage, pepper, salt, and orange juice.
Pound the mixture in a mortar until well combined.
Stuff the mixture into sausage skins.

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.

Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sage + orangetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together151 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Pepper + orangetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,402 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).
Veal + sagetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together670 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together10,049 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).