Skip to main content
Main

Oxford Sausages

A sausage made from lean pork, lean veal, pork fat, bread crumbs, sage, spices, and egg, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sage and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 642 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Oxford Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Chop the lean pork, veal, and fat very fine.

  2. Beat the mixture with a lard-beater or use a meat grinder.

Mix the sausage

  1. Add the bread crumbs and chopped sage leaves.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Beat the egg, mixing in the yolk and enough of the whites to moisten the mixture.

Shape and cook

  1. Form the mixture into sausages and dust with flour to prevent sticking.

  2. Fry the sausages over a clear fire until cooked through.

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. Sage + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together642 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean pork
Provides the main meat body and flavour for the sausage.
Lean veal
Adds a mild, delicate meat texture to the mixture.
Fat (mostly pork)
Adds moisture and richness so the sausages stay juicy when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help bind the mixture for a tender texture.
Egg
Binds the mixture together and helps hold the sausage shape.

The step that matters

Fry the sausages over a clear fire until cooked through. Pork must reach a fully cooked internal temperature for safety, while a fire that is too hot can scorch the outside before the centre is done. Steady, moderate heat cooks the sausage evenly.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, veal, bread, sage, pepper, egg. 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes