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Veal Sausages

A sausage made from equal parts lean veal and fat bacon, seasoned with sage, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 642 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Veal Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop equal quantities of lean veal and fat bacon.

  2. Add a small quantity of sage, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Beat the mixture in a mortar until smooth.

Shape and cook

  1. Roll the mixture into small sausages.

  2. Fry the sausages until cooked through.

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 + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together642 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 + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Veal + sagetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean veal
Forms the main body of the sausage, giving it its meaty texture.
Fat bacon
Adds fat that keeps the sausage moist and tender as it cooks.
Sage
Adds a savoury, aromatic herb flavour to the meat.

The step that matters

Beating the mixture until smooth. Thorough beating works the meat into a cohesive paste that holds its shape when rolled and fried. Under-mixing leaves a crumbly sausage that falls apart in the pan.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, 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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