Why it works: Allspice and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Pork Sausages
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the sausage
Chop the pork finely and mix in the salt, pepper, sage or thyme, allspice, and cloves.
Pack the mixture into stone pots or muslin bags, or fill cleaned hog casings.
To clean hog casings, soak them in saltwater or weak lime water for 3-4 days, then rinse and fill with the meat.
If not using casings, shape the sausage meat into sausages, dip in beaten egg, then coat with flour or rolled crackers.
Fry and serve
Fry the sausages in hot lard, turning to brown all sides.
Serve hot with boiled potatoes or hominy, drizzled with gravy made from the pan drippings.
For gravy, dredge a teaspoon of flour in the pan, stir until smooth and brown, then add boiling water and let it boil.
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.
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Allspice + clovetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together7,874 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Sage + allspicetop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together331 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,388 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Sage + clovetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together731 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
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Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together17,451 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pork
- Fat and lean meat supply the body, and the fat keeps the sausage moist and flavorful.
- Beaten egg
- Acts as a binder so the flour coating sticks to the sausage shape.
- Wheat flour
- Forms a crisp coating that browns in the hot fat and later thickens the gravy.
- Hot lard
- Conducts heat to brown the outside of the sausages and adds richness.
- Ground allspice
- Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the meat.
- Ground cloves
- Adds a strong, aromatic spice note that balances the pork.
The step that matters
Frying the sausages in hot lard. Fat that is hot enough browns the coated surface through Maillard reactions while the inside cooks. Fat that is too cool lets the coating absorb grease and leaves raw pork in the middle, so turn the sausages until every side is browned and cooked through.
Swap the sage
The recipe marks sage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper, allspice, clove, egg, wheat, flour):
- Nutmegfits better
- Cinnamonfits better
- Marjoramfits about as well
- Sagethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, allspice, clove, egg, wheat, flour. 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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