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Beef and Oyster Sausages

Sausages made from minced beef, mutton, suet, oysters, spices, eggs, and coated in breadcrumbs, fried until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Beef and Oyster Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Scald the oysters in their own liquor, then chop them finely.

  2. In a bowl, combine the minced beef, mutton, and beef suet.

  3. Add the chopped oysters, salt, pepper, mace, and pounded cloves to the meat mixture.

  4. Beat the eggs and mix them well with the other ingredients.

  5. Pack the mixture closely into a jar.

  6. When ready to use, roll the mixture into small sausages.

Coat and fry

  1. Dip the sausages in beaten egg yolk and coat with grated bread crumbs or dust with flour.

  2. Fry the sausages in fresh dripping until golden brown.

  3. Serve hot on fried bread.

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  4. Beef + muttontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Mutton + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the meat mixture together so the sausages hold their shape.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the sausages moist and juicy as they cook.
Minced beef
Provides the main meaty body and savoury flavour of the sausages.
Minced mutton
Adds richer, more robust meat flavour and extra body to the filling.
Oysters
Contribute a briny, savoury flavour that seasons the meat through the mixture.

The step that matters

Frying in fresh dripping until golden brown. Frying over steady heat browns the coated surface through Maillard reactions while the interior cooks. Too hot and the crumb coating burns before the centre is cooked; too cool and the sausages absorb fat and turn greasy.

Swap the mace

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against oyster, beef, mutton, pepper, clove, egg, bread. 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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