Name: Sausage Rolls
Ingredients: ½ lb flaky or short pastry; ½ lb sausage meat or sausages; 1 egg, beaten

Why it works: Meat and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,432 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Sausage Rolls

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

½ lb flaky or short pastry
½ lb sausage meat or sausages
1 egg, beaten

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

Cut the pastry into six squares.
Place half of a sausage on one end of a square.
Wet the edge of the pastry and roll it over carefully, leaving the ends open.
Mark across the top three or four times with the back of a knife.
Brush the rolls with beaten egg.

Bake

Place the rolls on a baking sheet and bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes.

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.

Meat + eggtop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,432 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Flaky or short pastry: Forms the crisp, flaky outer wrapper that puffs and browns in the oven.
Sausage meat or sausages: Provides the savoury filling that cooks inside the pastry.
Egg: Beaten egg brushed on top promotes golden browning and a glossy finish.