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Savoury Sausages

A vegetarian sausage made from lentil puree, breadcrumbs, egg, and fried onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Wheat and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,373 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Savoury Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Mix the breadcrumbs, beaten egg, lentil puree, fried onion, and seasoning in a bowl.

  2. Form the mixture into sausage shapes.

  3. Roll the sausages in wheat flour.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until golden brown.

  2. Serve with vegetables and sauce.

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. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Onion + wheattop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together858 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  3. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Egg + wheattop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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

What each ingredient does

Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and give the sausages body so they hold their shape.
Egg
Binds the mixture together so it holds its shape when formed and baked.
Lentil puree
Provides the main bulk and moisture, forming the core texture of the sausages.
Fried onion
Adds savoury flavour and aroma to the mixture.
Wheat flour
Forms a dry outer coating that helps the surface brown in the oven.

The step that matters

Bake until golden brown. Baking in a hot oven dries the surface and triggers browning through the Maillard reaction. Pulling them too early leaves the centres soft and pale, while too long can dry the outside.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, wheat, flour):

  1. Arrowrootfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, wheat, flour. 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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