Name: Veal Sausages, with Pork
Ingredients: equal quantities of veal and pork; ½ the weight of meat in beef suet, free from skin and fibre; 1 teaspoon powdered sage; pepper to taste; coarse sea salt to taste; optional: a little bread crumb soaked in water

Why it works: Pork and beef match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Veal Sausages, with Pork

Ingredients

equal quantities of veal and pork
½ the weight of meat in beef suet, free from skin and fibre
1 teaspoon powdered sage
pepper to taste
coarse sea salt to taste
optional: a little bread crumb soaked in water

Directions

Prepare the meat

Mince the veal and pork separately, then combine them.
Add the beef suet, sage, pepper, and salt to the meat mixture.

Fill the sausages

Clean and fill the sausage skins as usual.
If using immediately, mix in the soaked bread crumb.

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.

Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,690 recipes

Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Veal + porktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,930 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Pork + meattop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,208 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal and pork: Lean meats form the bulk and firm, sliceable texture of the sausage.
Beef suet: Suet adds fat that keeps the sausage moist and juicy as it cooks.
Sage: Sage gives the sausage its characteristic savoury, herbal aroma.
Bread crumb: Soaked crumb holds moisture, keeping the filling tender and juicy.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, pork, meat, beef, pepper, bread):

Marjoramfits about as well
Thymefits about as well
Sagethe original
Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, pork, meat, beef, pepper, 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.