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Oxford Sausages

A pork and veal sausage with bread crumbs, sage, and optional herbs, formed and fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Oxford Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Chop the lean pork, veal, and fat very fine.

  2. Beat the mixture with a lard-beater or use a machine.

Season and bind

  1. Add bread crumbs, sage, and any optional herbs.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Beat the egg yolk and mix it into the meat mixture.

  4. Add enough egg whites.

  5. Moisten the bread.

  6. Bind the mixture.

Shape and fry

  1. Form the mixture into sausages.

  2. Dust with flour to prevent sticking.

  3. Fry the sausages over a clear fire.

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. Sage + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

  2. Leek + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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 body and bite of the sausage.
Fat pork and veal
Adds fat that keeps the sausage moist and tender during frying.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices and fat, helping the sausage stay moist and hold its shape.
Egg
Binds the meat and crumbs together so the mixture holds its shape.
Sage leaves
Contributes the main aromatic flavour of the sausage.

The step that matters

Bind the mixture. The bread, egg and egg whites must be worked in evenly with the meat. Proteins in the egg set and bind the mince, while moistened crumbs hold water. Uneven binding leaves the sausages crumbly or dry.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, veal, bread, sage, thyme, leek, shallot):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, veal, bread, sage, thyme, leek, shallot. 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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