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Sausage Meat

A fried meat patty made from finely chopped pork and beef seasoned with pepper, salt, sage, and summer savory.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 237 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sausage Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Chop the pork and beef very fine.

  2. Mix the chopped meat with black pepper, salt, powdered sage, and summer savory.

  3. Form the mixture into small cakes and place them on a plate.

Cook

  1. When ready to cook, fry the cakes like sausages.

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 + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together237 recipes

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

  2. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  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

Pork
Adds fat and richness, keeping the sausage meat moist and tender as it cooks.
Lean beef
Provides the main meaty structure and bite of the sausage.
Powdered sage
Adds a savory, earthy aroma characteristic of breakfast sausage.
Summer savory
Contributes a peppery, herbal aroma that complements the pork and beef.

The step that matters

Chop the pork and beef very fine. Fine chopping spreads fat and lean evenly through the mixture, so the cakes cook uniformly and stay tender rather than dense or crumbly.

Swap the summer savory

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Rosemaryfits about as well
  4. Summer savorythe original

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