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Boiled Sausages

A dish of boiled sausages simmered with chestnuts, butter, flour, broth, wine, herbs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Chestnut and flour match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 517 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Boiled Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil water in a pot.

  2. Add sausages and simmer for 7 to 10 minutes, depending on size.

  3. Peel the chestnuts.

  4. Fry the chestnuts gently in butter until browned.

  5. Remove the sausages and chestnuts from the pan.

Make the sauce

  1. In the same pan, mix the remaining fat with flour and cook until browned.

  2. Gradually stir in the broth and white wine.

  3. Add herbs, salt, and pepper, and bring to a boil.

  4. Return the sausages and chestnuts to the pan, and stew gently for about 60 minutes.

  5. Remove the herbs.

Serve

  1. Plate the sausages and pile the chestnuts in the center.

  2. Strain the sauce over the dish and serve hot.

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. Chestnut + flourtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together517 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  3. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Chestnut + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together826 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Sausages
Provide the main meat and savory flavor of the dish.
Spanish chestnuts
Add starchy body and a sweet, nutty flavor to the dish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and browns the chestnuts for flavor.
Flour
Browned with the fat to thicken the sauce.
Beef or veal broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving it savory depth.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich sauce.

The step that matters

Browning the flour in the fat. Cooking the flour until browned builds a nutty flavor and lets it thicken the sauce evenly when the broth is added gradually, rather than leaving lumps or a raw taste.

Swap the chestnut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, beef, white wine, pepper):

  1. Beansfits about as well
  2. Almondfits about as well
  3. Chestnutthe original
  4. Chickpeafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, beef, white wine, pepper. 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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