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To Make Sausage

A sausage made from ham trimmings, lean beef, pepper, mustard seed, saltpetre, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and mustard are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,430 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Make Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Combine ham trimmings and lean beef in a large bowl.

  2. Add white ground pepper, unground white pepper, mustard seed, and saltpetre, then mix thoroughly and season with coarse sea salt to taste.

Stuff and cook

  1. Stuff the mixture into sausage casings and tie off securely.

  2. Cook the sausages by boiling or frying until fully cooked.

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. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  2. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  3. Ham + mustardtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together747 recipes

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

  4. Ham + beeftop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,729 recipes

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

  5. Beef + mustardtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 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

Ham trimmings
Provide the main meat and fat that give the sausage its body and juiciness.
Lean beef
Adds meaty flavour and firmness to the mixture.
Saltpetre
Helps keep the meat pink and adds a cured flavour.
Mustard seed
Adds a sharp, pungent aroma and flavour.

The step that matters

Cook the sausages until fully cooked. Sausage made from raw meat must reach a safe internal temperature throughout. Cooking by boiling or frying until fully done kills harmful bacteria, and an undercooked centre is the main risk.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, beef, pepper, mustard):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, beef, pepper, mustard. 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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