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Sausage Meat

A mixture of lean and fat pork seasoned with salt, sage, pepper, and optional herbs, packed and cured.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 507 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Sausage Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Use fresh pork, two-thirds lean and one-third fat, and chop it very fine.

  2. For every 12 pounds of meat, add 12 tablespoons of coarse sea salt, 9 tablespoons of dried sage, and 6 tablespoons of black pepper.

  3. If desired, add a little summer savory and sweet marjoram.

Pack and store

  1. Pack the meat tightly in a stone jar and pour lard over the top, about 1 inch thick.

  2. Store in a cool, dry place for several months, or fill into skins or cloth coverings and sew shut.

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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Summer savory + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together125 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  4. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean pork
Provides the meat structure and body of the sausage.
Fat pork
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the meat from drying out.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat and helps preserve it by drawing out moisture.
Dried sage
Adds its characteristic savory, aromatic flavour.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, aromatic heat that balances the rich pork.

The step that matters

Chop the pork very fine and pack it tightly. Fine chopping gives an even, cohesive texture, and tight packing excludes air, which slows spoilage and oxidation of the fat.

Swap the summer savory

The recipe marks summer savory as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, sage, pepper, marjoram):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Summer savorythe original
  3. Rosemaryfits less well
  4. Oreganofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sage, pepper, marjoram. 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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