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Bologna Sausages, Imitation

A cured sausage made from minced beef, pork, suet, spices, bacon, and wrapped in ox-skins, then smoked and aged.

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, Imitation

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Simmer the meat gently until tender.

  2. Chop the meat finely or pass it through a mincing machine 2 or 3 times.

  3. Pound the meat and suet until smooth.

  4. Season the mixture with pepper, and add mace and thyme sparingly.

Stuff and cure

  1. Press the mixture into prepared ox-skins, interspersing strips of bacon.

  2. Tie the skins in 8 or 9-inch lengths.

  3. Let them remain in brine for 9 or 10 days.

Smoke and store

  1. Hang them in the smoke from a peat fire for at least 3 weeks.

  2. Store in a cool, dry place and serve cut into thin slices.

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. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 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 + thymetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Thyme + macetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,113 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the main meaty structure and chew once cooked and pounded.
Lean pork
Adds richness and body to the meat mixture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the sausage moist and smooth-textured.
Bacon fat
Adds fat and savoury flavour in strips throughout the sausage.
Thyme
Adds a savoury herbal aroma to the meat.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the meat.

The step that matters

Pound the meat and suet until smooth. Breaking the meat and fat down into a fine, even paste gives the sausage a smooth, cohesive texture. Coarse pieces leave it crumbly and uneven once sliced.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, thyme, 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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