Name: An Excellent Sausage to Eat Cold
Ingredients: 2 lbs lean pork; 2 lbs fat pork; salt; 1 teaspoon black pepper; 1 teaspoon allspice; 1 shallot or garlic, finely chopped; ox-gut (cleaned and soaked); muslin (for wrapping)

Why it works: Pepper and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

An Excellent Sausage to Eat Cold

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

Season the pork with salt, black pepper, and allspice, rubbing it into the meat.
On the sixth day, cut the meat small and mix in the finely chopped shallot or garlic.

Stuff and dry

Prepare the ox-gut by scouring, salting, and soaking it well.
Fill the gut with the meat mixture, tie the ends, and wrap it in old muslin.
Hang the sausage to smoke like hams until high-dried.
Some prefer to boil it before eating, while others enjoy it cold.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Allspice + shallottop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together386 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,898 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pork + shallottop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,316 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean pork: Provides the lean meat that forms the body of the sausage.
Fat pork: Adds fat that keeps the sausage moist and carries flavour as it dries.
Shallot or garlic: Adds aromatic flavour to the meat mixture.