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Mock Sausage

A sausage-like patty made from soaked bread and finely chopped cold meat, seasoned with salt, pepper, and sage, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Mock Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the dry bread in water.

Make and cook the cakes

  1. Combine the soaked bread with an equal amount of chopped cold meat.

  2. Season the mixture with salt, pepper, and sage.

  3. Form the mixture into small cakes.

  4. Fry the cakes until golden brown.

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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Bread + meattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,924 recipes

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

  3. Bread + sagetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Dry bread
Soaked bread absorbs water and binds with the meat, giving the cakes body and moisture.
Cold meat
Provides the main protein and flavour, and holds the cakes together once chilled and chopped fine.
Sage
Adds the aromatic herb flavour that makes the cakes taste like sausage.

The step that matters

Fry the cakes until golden brown. Frying browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, which adds rich flavour and colour. Cooking through matters too, so the meat is safely done and the cakes hold their shape.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, meat, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, meat, 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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