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Bologna Sausages

A sausage made from a mixture of beef, pork, bacon, veal, and herbs, boiled and then dried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 the beef suet, pork, bacon, beef, and veal into small pieces and chop them finely.

  2. Chop the sage leaves and sweet herbs finely.

  3. Mix the chopped meats with the herbs, seasoning generously with pepper and salt.

Fill and cook

  1. Fill the cleaned gut with the meat mixture.

  2. Boil a saucepan of water, then gently place the filled gut in, pricking it to prevent bursting.

  3. Boil for one hour, then lay the sausage on clean straw to dry.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pork + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the filling moist and tender during cooking.
Pork
Provides the main meat body and savoury flavour of the filling.
Bacon
Contributes fat and smoky, savoury flavour to the mixture.
Beef
Forms the principal meat structure and rich flavour of the sausage.
Veal
Adds a mild, delicate meat flavour and soft texture to the filling.

The step that matters

Pricking the gut before boiling. Air and steam trapped inside the casing expand as it heats, so pricking lets them escape and prevents the skin from bursting and the filling from leaking into the water.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Sagethe original
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

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