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Boiled Sausages

A stew of boiled sausages, chestnuts, and a savory sauce of butter, flour, broth, and wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 the sausages

  1. Bring water to a boil in a pot.

  2. Add sausages and simmer for 7 to 10 minutes until cooked.

  3. Fry sausages until browned.

  4. Remove sausages from skillet.

Prepare the chestnuts

  1. Roast chestnuts while sausages are cooking.

  2. Peel chestnuts.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt butter in a skillet.

  2. Add flour to the skillet and stir until browned.

  3. Gradually add broth.

  4. Add white wine.

  5. Stir continuously.

  6. Add herbs, salt, and pepper.

  7. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  8. Place sausages around the pan.

  9. Place chestnuts in the center.

  10. Stew gently for about 50 to 60 minutes.

  11. Remove herbs.

Plate and serve

  1. Plate sausages.

  2. Pile chestnuts in the center.

  3. Strain sauce over them.

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

Flour
Browned with the butter, it thickens the broth into a body-rich sauce.
Butter
Carries the browning and adds richness to the sauce.
Beef or veal broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce and carries its meaty flavor.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich broth.
Spanish chestnuts
Add starchy body and a mild sweetness as they stew in the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring the flour into the butter. Flour must brown in the melted butter and be stirred steadily so it cooks out without lumps or scorching. Adding broth too early or with unstirred flour leaves a raw, lumpy sauce.

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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