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Beef and Oyster Sausages

Sausages made from minced beef, mutton, suet, and oysters, seasoned and fried, served hot on fried bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Beef and Oyster Sausages

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Scald the oysters in their own liquor, then chop them finely.

  2. Mince the beef, mutton, and beef suet.

  3. Combine the chopped oysters with the minced meats.

  4. Season with salt, pepper, mace, and pounded cloves.

  5. Beat the eggs and mix them well with the other ingredients.

  6. Pack the mixture tightly into a jar.

Shape and fry

  1. When ready to use, roll into small sausages.

  2. Dip the sausages in beaten egg yolk.

  3. Strew grated bread crumbs over them or dust with flour.

  4. Fry in fresh dripping until golden brown.

  5. Serve hot on fried bread.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help the sausages hold their shape.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the sausages moist and rich as they cook.
Oysters
Contribute a distinctive briny flavour to the meat filling.
Beef
Provides the main body and savoury flavour of the sausages.
Mutton
Adds further meaty flavour and body to the filling.

The step that matters

Frying in dripping until golden brown. The sausages are already cooked through from the scalding and mixing, so the frying mainly browns the coating. Dust with bread crumbs or flour and fry in hot fat; the proteins and starches brown, and too low a heat leaves a greasy, pale coating.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, beef, mutton, pepper, clove, egg, bread):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, beef, mutton, pepper, clove, egg, bread. 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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