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Bologna Sausages

A sausage made from finely chopped beef, pork, bacon, veal, and herbs, stuffed into a cleaned casing and boiled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Bologna Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the filling

  1. Combine the beef suet, pork, bacon, beef, and veal in a bowl.

  2. Add the chopped sage and other herbs, then season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Stuff and cook

  1. Stuff the mixture into the cleaned sausage casing.

  2. Prick the casing to prevent bursting.

  3. Boil in a saucepan of water for 1 hour.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  4. Pork + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,930 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Beef + vealtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the sausage moist and tender as it cooks.
Pork
Provides the main meat body and fat for a juicy, cohesive texture.
Bacon
Adds fat and smoky, savory flavor throughout the filling.
Beef
Contributes meaty flavor and structure to the filling.
Veal
Adds a mild, delicate meat flavor and a fine, soft texture.
Sage leaves
Contributes a warm, aromatic herbal flavor to the sausage.

The step that matters

Prick the casing. Pricking lets steam and expanding air escape during boiling, so the casing does not split and the filling does not leak out.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pork, veal, pepper):

  1. Sagethe original
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, veal, pepper. 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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