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Excellent Sausages

A pork sausage made by mixing lean and fat pork with salt, pepper, nutmeg, mace, and butter‑frying the formed patties.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Excellent Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the mixture

  1. Mix the lean pork and fat pork together in a bowl.

  2. Add the salt, pepper, grated nutmeg, and pounded mace to the meat mixture and chop until evenly seasoned and finely ground.

  3. Press the mixture into a clean pan and store in a cool place.

Cook

  1. When ready to cook, form the mixture into cakes less than 1 inch thick.

  2. Dust the cakes with flour and fry in a little butter for about 10 minutes, or roast them in an oven.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Nutmeg + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Lean pork
Provides the lean meat that forms the body of the patty.
Fat pork
Adds fat that keeps the patties moist and juicy as they cook.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat and helps draw out moisture for a firmer texture.
Black pepper
Adds sharp, aromatic heat that seasons the meat throughout.
Nutmeg
Contributes warm, sweet aroma that complements the pork.
Mace
Adds a delicate, warm spice aroma related to nutmeg.

The step that matters

Chopping the mixture until finely ground. Fine, even chopping spreads the salt and spices evenly and gives the patties a uniform, tender texture. Uneven grinding leaves pockets of salt and fat that make some bites dry or harsh.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Sagefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, nutmeg, butter. 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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