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Oxford Sausages

A sausage made from lean pork, lean veal, fat pork and veal, bread crumbs, sage, optional herbs, and eggs.

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.

Mix the sausage

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

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Beat the egg yolks and mix them into the meat mixture.

  4. Add enough egg whites to moisten the bread and help the mixture adhere.

Form and cook

  1. Form the mixture into sausages and dust with flour to prevent sticking.

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Thyme + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together360 recipes

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

  4. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  5. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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 meat body and savoury flavour of the sausage.
Lean veal
Adds mild, delicate meat flavour and a fine-textured bite.
Fat pork and veal
Supplies fat that keeps the sausage moist and tender as it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and fat, giving the sausage a softer, lighter texture.
Egg
Binds the meat and crumbs together so the sausages hold their shape.

The step that matters

Adding the egg whites. Egg whites add moisture and binding, but too many make the mixture wet and hard to shape. Add them gradually until the mix holds together and the bread is just moistened.

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, clove):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Winter savoryfits better
  3. Allspicefits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

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