Name: Savoury Sausages for Eating Cold
Ingredients: lean beef; streaky pork; sugar; coarse sea salt; spices; cayenne pepper; shallot or garlic; beef suet (if needed); ox gut (cleaned)

Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Savoury Sausages for Eating Cold

Ingredients

Directions

Mix equal parts of sugar, coarse sea salt, and spices.
Salt the lean beef and streaky pork with the mixture for 5-6 days.
Remove from the pickle and chop finely, discarding skin and gristle.
If pork fat is less than one-third, add enough beef suet to make it up.
Season the mixture with cayenne pepper and shallot or garlic.
Stuff the mixture into cleaned ox gut, tying in lengths of 9-10 inches.
Dry the sausages in wood smoke.
Bake or boil the sausages, then let them cool and cut into slices for sandwiches.

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.

Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,690 recipes

Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + shallottop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,898 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Beef + shallottop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,103 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Pork + shallottop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,316 recipes

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