Skip to main content
Main

Portuguese Sausages

A fermented pork sausage marinated in wine and spices, hung to cure for up to a year.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,090 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Portuguese Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Marinate

  1. Combine the pork pieces with the spices and garlic, and mix well.

  2. Cover the mixture with dry wine, adding more as it absorbs, and let it marinate for 8 days.

Stuff and hang

  1. Fill the largest sausage casings with the marinated meat, alternating fat and lean, and add some wine.

  2. Tie the sausages into links and hang them in a cool, dry place.

  3. They will keep for up to 12 months and can be served boiled or fried.

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 + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  2. Garlic + winetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  3. Pork + garlictop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

  4. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + winetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,066 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

2-year-old pork
Provides the meat and fat that give the sausage its body and richness.
Dry wine
Moistens the meat during marinating and adds acidity and aroma.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that deepens during the long marinating period.
Spanish or red pepper
Adds colour and a warm, smoky-sweet pepper flavour.

The step that matters

Marinating in wine for 8 days. The wine must keep covering the meat as it absorbs liquid, or the exposed surface can dry out and spoil. The acid and salt in the marinade slowly season the meat and help preserve it over the long soak.

Swap the garlic

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Rosemaryfits about as well
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, wine. 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.

You might also like

Pork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes