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Young Oxford Sausages

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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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 ↓

Young Oxford Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine pork and beef suet in a bowl.

  2. Add grated bread, lemon peel, grated nutmeg, sage, pepper, salt, thyme, savory, and marjoram.

  3. Mix well and press the mixture into a pan until ready to use.

  4. Shape the mixture into common sausage sizes.

  5. Fry sausages in fresh butter until golden brown or broil over a clear fire.

  6. Serve hot.

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. Lemon + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  3. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  4. Lemon + sagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Nutmeg + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together642 recipes

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

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

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, beef, bread, lemon, sage, pepper, thyme. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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