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Savoury Sausage

A dish of fried sausages mixed with parsley, Parmesan, and cayenne, spread on hot buttered toast and baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Savoury Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the topping

  1. Fry the sausages and remove the skins.

  2. Pound the sausages in a mortar with chopped parsley, grated Parmesan cheese, and cayenne pepper.

Assemble and bake

  1. Spread the mixture on small squares of hot buttered toast.

  2. Place in a 400°F (200°C) oven until very hot and serve immediately.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,322 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  3. Parsley + parmesan cheesetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,799 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Sausages
Provide the savoury, meaty base that forms the main flavour of the topping.
Parmesan cheese
Adds salty, savoury depth and helps the topping brown lightly in the oven.
Hot buttered toast
Gives a crisp, buttery base that holds the topping and adds richness.

The step that matters

Heating in the oven until very hot. The topping must be heated through so the fat and cheese soften and blend with the sausage. Underheated topping stays greasy and cool, while the toast can dry or burn if left too long.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Basilfits better
  2. Celeryfits about as well
  3. Parsleythe original
  4. Oreganofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against parmesan cheese, 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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