Name: Sausages
Ingredients: 1 pound fat pork; 1 pound lean pork; 1 teaspoon sage; 1 teaspoon black pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 2-3 allspice berries; flour (for dusting); stewed red cabbage (for serving); mashed potatoes (for serving)

Why it works: Sage and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 331 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the fat and lean pork together.
Season with sage, black pepper, coarse sea salt, and allspice.
Half fill cleaned hog casings with the mixture.
Alternatively, keep the meat in a small pan, covered tightly.
Dust with a little flour before frying.
Serve on stewed red cabbage or with mashed potatoes.
Prick the potatoes with a fork before cooking to prevent bursting.

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.

Sage + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together331 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,668 recipes

Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).
Pepper + cabbagetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,081 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

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, sage, pepper, allspice, flour, potato):

Capsicumfits better
Carrotfits better
Parsnipfits better
Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sage, pepper, allspice, flour, potato. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.