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Faggots, Baked

Faggots are baked liver and pork meatballs seasoned with herbs and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Faggots, Baked

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Chop the liver and pork very finely.

  2. Season the mixture with onion, sage, thyme, salt, and pepper.

  3. Steam the mixture over boiling water for 30 minutes, then drain off all fat.

  4. Once cooled, add bread crumbs, beaten eggs, and nutmeg; mix thoroughly.

Shape and bake

  1. Form the mixture into round balls.

  2. Place the balls in a buttered dish with a small amount of gravy or wrap them in pig's caul.

  3. Bake slowly until they are pale brown.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  4. Onion + thymetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Liver + porktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,606 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-nonanal (fatty, waxy).

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

What each ingredient does

Calf's or pig's liver
Forms the main body of the faggots and gives them a rich, meaty flavour.
Fresh fat pork
Adds fat that keeps the faggots moist and tender as they cook.
Eggs
Bind the mixture so the balls hold their shape when baked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help give the balls a firm, sliceable texture.

The step that matters

Drain off all fat after steaming. Fat left in the mixture can separate during baking and make the balls greasy and loose. Removing it before adding the binders helps the eggs and crumbs set into a firm, cohesive texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (liver, pork, sage, thyme, pepper, bread, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, pork, sage, thyme, pepper, bread, egg. 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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