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Oyster Sausages

A savory sausage made from oysters, bread crumbs, beef suet, eggs, and spices, then broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Oyster Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Remove gills from oysters and chop them finely.

  2. Boil the chopped oysters in water for 3 minutes, then drain and let them cool.

Shape the sausages

  1. In a bowl, combine the cooled oysters, bread crumbs, beef suet, and eggs.

  2. Season the mixture with salt, cayenne, pounded mace, and nutmeg to taste.

  3. Flour your hands and shape the mixture into sausages.

  4. Dip the sausages in egg and then in bread crumbs.

Broil

  1. Broil the sausages gently until they are lightly colored.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 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

Oysters
Provide the main flavour and the bulk of the filling.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the sausages body and structure.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the sausages moist and tender as they cook.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help the coating set and brown.

The step that matters

Broil the sausages gently. Gentle heat cooks the filling through and lightly colors the coating without drying the suet or scorching the crumbs. High heat can brown the outside before the center is cooked.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, bread, beef, egg, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, bread, beef, egg, nutmeg. 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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