Skip to main content
Main

Sausages, Lyons

A cured sausage of lean pork, veal, and pork fat, seasoned with salt, pepper, shallots, herbs, and wine lees, then smoked and dried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Thyme and sage 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 ↓

Sausages, Lyons

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Mince the lean pork and veal finely, then pound until smooth.

  2. Cut the pork fat into small dice and mix it with the minced meat.

  3. Season the mixture with salt, saltpetre, bruised shallots, ground pepper, and whole peppercorns.

  4. Leave the seasoned mixture for 24 hours.

Stuff and cure

  1. Clean the sausage casings thoroughly, then stuff them tightly with the meat mixture and secure the ends with string.

  2. Place the sausages in an earthen pan with salt, adding a small amount of saltpetre above and below them.

  3. Let the sausages cure for a week.

Dry and finish

  1. After a week, dry the sausages in a smokehouse or over a wood fire.

  2. Boil bay leaves, thyme, and sage in wine lees.

  3. Dip the sausages in the boiled mixture.

  4. Tie the ends of the sausages with fresh string.

  5. Dry the sausages again.

  6. Wrap the sausages in paper.

  7. Store in a dry, cool place until needed.

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. Thyme + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

  2. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  5. Shallot + sagetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together181 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean pork
Forms the main body of the sausage, giving it bulk and a meaty structure.
Lean veal
Adds tender texture to the minced meat mixture.
Pork fat
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the sausage from drying out as it cures.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the meat while it cures and preserves it.
Saltpetre
Helps preserve the meat and gives it its characteristic cured colour during curing.

The step that matters

Stuffing the casings tightly. Tight stuffing removes air pockets, which otherwise can spoil or cause uneven drying and curing inside the sausage.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, veal, pepper, thyme, sage, wine):

  1. Tomatofits about as well
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Shallotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, veal, pepper, thyme, sage, wine. 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.

You might also like

Pork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesVeal PattiesVeal Patties50 recipesBeef, Mutton, or Veal BrothBeef, Mutton, or Veal Broth6 recipes