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Bologna Sausages

A sausage made from beef, pork, and bacon seasoned with salt, pepper, cloves, mace, and garlic, then boiled or smoked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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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 ↓

Bologna Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Cut beef and pork into pieces and pound to a paste.

  2. Season with salt, black pepper, cloves, mace, and garlic.

Fill and boil

  1. Fill the skins with the mixture, inserting strips of fat bacon throughout.

  2. Boil for at least 1 hour.

Smoke

  1. Smoke for 2 months.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Provides the lean protein that binds into a firm, sliceable paste when pounded and cooked.
Pork
Adds fat and protein that keep the sausage moist and help it hold together.
Fat bacon strips
Melt during cooking to add moisture and savory flavor throughout the sausage.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma that carries through the meat.
Cloves
Add a warm, sweet-spicy aroma to the meat mixture.
Mace
Adds a warm, nutmeg-like aroma that rounds out the seasoning.

The step that matters

Boil for at least 1 hour. Heat denatures and sets the meat proteins, so the paste firms up and holds its shape in the casing. Stopping early can leave the filling soft and loosely bound.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, pepper, clove, garlic):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, pepper, clove, garlic. 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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