Name: Bologna Sausages
Ingredients: veal; pork; ham; pepper; coarse sea salt; sweet herbs; beef chitterlings

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 ↓

Bologna Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Chop veal, pork, and ham finely.
Season the meat with pepper, coarse sea salt, and sweet herbs.
Soak cleaned beef chitterlings in water for three days, changing the water daily.
Soak chitterlings in tepid saltwater for 24 hours, then scrape and wash them in cold water.
Stuff the chitterlings with the meat mixture.
Boil the stuffed chitterlings until tender, then dry them.

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).
Pepper + beeftop 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).
Veal + beeftop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,784 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).
Pork + hamtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,638 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).