Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Truffled Sausages
Ingredients
Directions
Mix the lean pork, fat, minced truffles, salt, cayenne or white pepper, grated nutmeg, mace, and powdered herbs in a bowl.
Taste the mixture and adjust seasonings as desired.
Stuff the mixture into clean sausage casings.
If using immediately, moisten the sausages with Madeira before cooking.
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.
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Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,686 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,557 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together8,400 recipes
Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
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White pepper + macetop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,695 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
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Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together11,368 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
Swap the clove
The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, truffle, white pepper, nutmeg, mace, garlic):
- Marjoramfits about as well
- Thymefits about as well
- Clovethe original
- Allspicefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against pork, truffle, white pepper, nutmeg, mace, garlic. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
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