Name: Pork Sausage
Ingredients: 100 pounds moderately lean fresh pork trimmings; 16 ounces salt; 6 ounces ground white pepper; ½ ounce ground nutmeg; 2 ounces allspice; 1 ounce ground celery seed; 2 ounces ground mace; finely powdered sage (to taste); 10 to 15 pounds water (adjust as needed)

Why it works: Nutmeg and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Pork Sausage

Ingredients

Directions

Chop the pork trimmings and season with salt, white pepper, nutmeg, allspice, celery seed, mace, and sage.
Gradually add water while chopping until the mixture is well combined.
Stuff the mixture into hog casings to make small links or into sheep casings for a fancier presentation.
Store the sausage in a cool place; it will keep fresh for several days.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,331 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together331 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Nutmeg + sagetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together642 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,557 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Celery + sagetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together723 recipes

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

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

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, nutmeg, allspice, celery, mace, sage):

Marjoramfits better
Clovefits better
Thymefits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, nutmeg, allspice, celery, mace, sage. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.