Name: Sausage Meat
Ingredients: 1 pound fresh pork; 2 pounds lean beef; 3 teaspoons black pepper; 3 teaspoons coarse sea salt; 5 teaspoons powdered sage; 5 teaspoons summer-savory

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 ↓

Sausage Meat

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

Chop the pork and beef very fine.
Mix the chopped meat with black pepper, salt, powdered sage, and summer-savory.

Form and cook

Form the mixture into small cakes.
When ready to cook, fry the cakes like sausages.

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.

Pork + beeftop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,690 recipes

Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).
Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,971 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,527 recipes

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

Pork: Its fat adds moisture and richness to the cakes as they cook.
Beef: Finely chopped lean beef gives the cakes a meaty flavor and a firm, sliceable texture.
Powdered sage: Adds a savory, aromatic flavor that defines the sausage taste.
Summer-savory: Adds a peppery, herbal aroma that complements the sage and meat.