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Oyster Sausages

Oyster sausages are plump oysters mixed with breadcrumbs, suet, and spices, formed into sausage shapes and broiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg 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 ↓

Oyster Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the oysters

  1. Remove the gills from the oysters and place them in boiling water for 3 minutes.

  2. Drain the oysters and cool them.

Shape and cook

  1. Mix the oysters with bread crumbs, beef suet, and seasonings.

  2. Form the mixture into sausages, flouring your hands as needed.

  3. Broil the sausages gently until lightly colored, tasting a small piece to adjust seasoning if necessary.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Bread + beeftop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Oyster + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,545 recipes

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

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  5. Oyster + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,103 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Oysters
Provide the main flavor and the soft, moist body of the sausage.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the mixture so it holds its sausage shape.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the sausages moist and tender during cooking.
Eggs
Bind the mixture together and help it set as it cooks.

The step that matters

Broil the sausages gently. High heat cooks the outside faster than the inside and can dry or toughen the sausages. Gentle heat until lightly colored lets the centre set while the fat stays moist.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (oyster, bread, beef, nutmeg, egg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, bread, beef, nutmeg, egg. 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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