Name: Sausage-meat
Ingredients: 1 pound lean pork, chopped very fine; 1 pound lean veal, chopped very fine; Salt, to taste; Black pepper, to taste; Grated nutmeg, to taste; Grated clove, to taste; Cinnamon, optional, to taste; 1 egg yolk (optional)

Why it works: Nutmeg and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,917 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Sausage-meat

Ingredients

Directions

Combine the chopped pork and veal in a bowl and mix well.
Season the mixture with salt, black pepper, nutmeg, clove, and cinnamon if desired.
If using, add the egg yolk and mix until fully incorporated.
Shape the mixture into sausages or use 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.

Nutmeg + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together11,917 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Clove + cinnamontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,189 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).
Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,686 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

Swap the cinnamon

The recipe marks cinnamon as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, veal, pepper, nutmeg, clove, egg):

Allspicefits about as well
Cinnamonthe original
Marjoramfits about as well
Sagefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, veal, pepper, nutmeg, clove, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.