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Country Pork Sausage

A pork sausage made with lean pork, chine fat, salt, pepper, sage, and summer savory, stuffed into intestines or muslin bags.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 237 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Country Pork Sausage

Oven, in the book's wordsA very moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Finely chop the lean and fat pork.

  2. Mix the salt, black pepper, sage, and summer savory into the meat using your hands.

  3. Taste the mixture to ensure it has the right flavor.

Store

  1. Stuff the mixture into cleaned hog intestines or make long bags from stout muslin.

  2. Fill the bags with the meat, dip in melted lard, and hang in a cool, dry, dark place.

  3. Alternatively, pack the meat in jars, pour melted lard over it, and cover.

Cook and serve

  1. When ready to use, take out the meat, form into round cakes, and fry until brown.

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 + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together237 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Pork + summer savorytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together239 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean fresh pork
Provides the lean meat that forms the body and bite of the sausage.
Chine fat
Adds fat that keeps the sausage moist and tender as it cooks.
Salt
Seasons the meat and helps it hold together and stay juicy.
Sage
Contributes the dominant herbal aroma typical of country sausage.
Summer savory
Adds a peppery, aromatic herb note that complements the sage.

The step that matters

Taste the mixture before stuffing. Salt and herbs are mixed in by hand and unevenly distributed, so seasoning can be off. Tasting a small cooked piece is the only way to check and correct it before the meat is packed and stored.

Swap the summer savory

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Summer savorythe original
  4. Rosemaryfits about as well

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