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Italian Sausage

A pork sausage made with lean and fat pork, spices, pig's blood, white wine, and calf head strips.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,544 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Italian Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Mince the lean and fat pork together.

  2. Season the mixture with salt, mixed spice, coriander seed, and bruised aniseed.

  3. Moisten the mixture with pig's blood and white wine to bind it, but do not make it too moist.

  4. Mix in strips from the best part of a calf's head.

Stuff and cook

  1. Stuff the mixture into sausage skins and tie the ends securely.

  2. Plunge the sausages into boiling water and boil gently for half an hour until done.

  3. Dry the sausages in a smoke-house or over a wood fire until hard.

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. Pork + white winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,544 recipes

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

  2. Coriander + white winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together235 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Pork + coriandertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together909 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean pork
Provides the lean meat that forms the main body and texture of the sausage.
Fat pork
Adds fat for moisture and a tender, juicy bite as the sausage cooks.
Pig's blood
Helps bind the mixture together and adds richness to the filling.
White wine
Adds moisture to the mixture and a light acidity that balances the meat.
Strips from a calf's head
Adds gelatinous texture that helps the filling hold together when cooked.

The step that matters

Moistening the mixture. Too much liquid from the blood and wine makes the filling loose and wet, so it may split or fail to firm up when dried. Add the liquid gradually, only enough to bind.

Swap the coriander

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Corianderthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, white 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.

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