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Bologna Sausage

A sausage made from lean pork, lean beef, suet, salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and cloves.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and beef 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 Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Chop the lean pork and beef very fine.

  2. Add the suet and mix well.

Season and shape

  1. Season the mixture with salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper, and cloves.

  2. Stuff the mixture into thoroughly cleansed sausage skins or shape into cakes.

  3. Cook as desired.

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. Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

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

  4. Pork + clovetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,515 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lean pork
Provides lean protein that gives the sausage its firm, sliceable structure.
Lean beef
Adds meaty bulk and savory flavor to the mixture.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the sausage moist and tender as it cooks.
Black pepper
Contributes sharp, aromatic heat that seasons the meat.
Cayenne pepper
Adds pungent heat that gives the sausage its spicy character.
Cloves
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes to the seasoning.

The step that matters

Chop the meat very fine. Fine chopping breaks the meat into small pieces so the fat and lean distribute evenly. Uneven pieces can make the sausage crumbly or greasy in some spots and dense in others.

Swap the clove

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, beef, 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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