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Sausage Meat

A mixture of minced meat seasoned with salt, sage, pepper, and summer savory.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 237 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sausage Meat

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large bowl, combine the minced meat with the coarse sea salt, sage, pepper, and summer savory. Mix thoroughly until all ingredients are well incorporated.

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 + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together237 recipes

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

  2. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Meat + summer savorytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together73 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Minced meat
Forms the bulk of the sausage and provides the main texture and fat for juiciness.
Sage
Adds the characteristic savory, herbal aroma of sausage.
Summer savory
Adds a peppery, herbal aroma that complements the sage.

The step that matters

Mix thoroughly until all ingredients are well incorporated. Salt must be evenly distributed through the meat. Salt dissolves and extracts muscle proteins, which bind the mixture so it holds together and stays juicy when cooked. Uneven mixing leaves salty pockets and weak binding.

Swap the summer savory

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, sage, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Summer savorythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, sage, pepper. 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.

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