Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓
Sausage-meat Cakes
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Mix the ground cloves, ground mace, and cayenne pepper in a bowl.
Add suet or fat to the mixture to achieve desired consistency.
If using veal or venison, mix in ⅓ portion of mutton-suet or fat bacon.
Shape the mixture into cakes.
Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours.
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.
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Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
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Clove + macetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,400 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together12,257 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Mace + vealtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,761 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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Pepper + vealtop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together10,049 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clove, pepper, veal):
- Allspicefits better
- Marjoramfits better
- Sagefits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against clove, pepper, veal. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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