Name: Truffled Sausages
Ingredients: 2 pounds lean young tender pork; 1 pound fat pork; ¼ pound truffles, minced very small; 1½ ounces coarse sea salt; Cayenne pepper to taste or ½ ounce white pepper; 1 nutmeg, grated; 1 teaspoon freshly pounded mace; 2 teaspoons dried savory herbs, powdered; 1 to 2 glasses Madeira (optional)

Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Truffled Sausages

Ingredients

2 pounds lean young tender pork
1 pound fat pork
¼ pound truffles, minced very small
1½ ounces coarse sea salt
Cayenne pepper to taste or ½ ounce white pepper
1 nutmeg, grated
1 teaspoon freshly pounded mace
2 teaspoons dried savory herbs, powdered
1 to 2 glasses Madeira (optional)

Directions

Mix the lean pork, fat pork, minced truffles, salt, cayenne or white pepper, grated nutmeg, mace, and powdered herbs in a bowl.
Taste a small amount of the mixture and adjust seasonings as desired.
Stuff the mixture into clean sausage casings.
If using immediately, moisten the sausages with Madeira before cooking.

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.

Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pork + truffletop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,380 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-ethylphenol (must).
Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together12,257 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

Pepper and mace 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 (pork, truffle, pepper, nutmeg):

Marjoramfits better
Clovefits better
Thymefits better
Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, truffle, pepper, nutmeg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Pork Cake107 recipes

Roast Pork82 recipes

Tomato Soup526 recipes

Brown Bread461 recipes

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Truffled Sausages