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Fork Sausages

A sausage made from finely shredded pork, beef suet, pork fat, sage, nutmeg, salt, sweet herbs, coated in egg and flour, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and beef 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 ↓

Fork Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Shred and chop the pork very fine.

  2. Chop the beef suet and pork fat very fine.

  3. Spread the chopped meat on a large dish and sprinkle with sage.

  4. Grate in the nutmegs, add salt and sweet herbs, then mix well.

  5. Cover the mixture with paper and let it stand for 1-2 days.

Shape and cook

  1. When ready, roll the mixture into sausage-sized shapes.

  2. Coat the sausages in egg, then roll them in flour.

  3. Heat butter in a pan until very hot, then add the sausages.

  4. Fry the sausages, shaking the pan frequently, until they are golden brown.

  5. Serve hot.

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 + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Sage + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together642 recipes

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

  3. Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,623 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lean pork
Provides the main lean meat body that holds the sausage together.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the sausage moist and tender during cooking.
Pork fat
Adds fat that keeps the sausage juicy and carries flavour through the meat.
Egg
Forms a coating that helps the flour stick and promotes browning in the pan.
Flour
Forms a dry outer layer that helps the sausages brown when fried.

The step that matters

Fry the sausages, shaking the pan frequently, until golden brown. The pan must be very hot before the sausages go in, so the coating sets and browns quickly. Frequent shaking keeps the flour and egg coating from scorching in one spot and promotes even browning.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, beef, nutmeg, egg, flour, butter):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, beef, nutmeg, egg, flour, butter. 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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