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Game Sausages

Sausages made from game meat mixed with ham and butter, seasoned with salt, pepper, and mace, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Game Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Cut the meat from the remains of the game, removing the skin and sinew.

  2. Mince the flesh and pound it in a mortar with the ham and butter.

  3. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and powdered mace.

Cook

  1. Put the mixture into casings and fry in hot butter or lard for 45 minutes.

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 + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,475 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  4. Butter + macetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together11,405 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Ham + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Remains of game
Provides the main meat, giving the sausage its body and savoury flavour.
Lean ham
Adds salty, savoury flavour and helps the mixture hold together.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, keeping the sausage tender as it cooks.

The step that matters

Pounding the meat with ham and butter. Pounding breaks the meat into a fine, cohesive paste. Working in the fat evenly keeps the sausage moist and prevents it from crumbling or drying out during frying.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, butter, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, butter, 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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