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Spanish Sausage

A pork sausage seasoned with salt, red pepper, cayenne, garlic, turmeric, soaked in wine and vinegar, then stuffed into ox skins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Garlic and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 25,665 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

Spanish Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the pork into equal parts of fat and lean.

  2. In a bowl, mix salprunella, Spanish red pepper, cayenne, garlic, and turmeric.

Cure and stuff

  1. Soak the mixture in Malaga wine and strong vinegar for one week.

  2. Stuff the mixture into large ox skins and store in a dry place.

Serve

  1. Before serving, toss slices in olive oil and garnish with pickled green capsicums.

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. Garlic + olivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Clove + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,876 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Pepper + turmerictop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Garlic + turmerictop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,363 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork fat and lean meat
Lean meat provides the body of the sausage, while fat adds moisture and richness to each slice.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows and deepens during the long soak.
Malaga wine
Adds sweetness and aroma to the soaking mixture, helping to flavour the meat.
Strong vinegar
Acidity works into the meat during soaking, adding tang and helping to preserve the mixture.
Spanish red pepper
Provides colour and mild warmth that spreads through the mixture.

The step that matters

Soaking the mixture for one week. The meat must stay in the wine and vinegar long enough for the flavours to penetrate, and the sausage must be kept dry afterward so it cures rather than spoiling.

Swap the turmeric

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper, clove, garlic, wine, vinegar, olive):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Rosemaryfits better
  3. Basilfits better
  4. Turmericthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, clove, garlic, wine, vinegar, olive. 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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