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Beef Sausages

Beef sausages made from finely chopped beef and suet, spiced with allspice, salt, and pepper, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Allspice and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,395 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Beef Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Chop the beef and suet as finely as possible.

  2. Add the allspice, salt, and pepper, and mix well.

Shape and cook

  1. Press the mixture lightly into the sausage skins and prick them well.

  2. If sausage skins are unavailable, shape the mixture into small cakes and coat with flour before frying.

  3. Fry in hot fat at 400°F (200°C) until cooked and well-browned, about 10 to 15 minutes.

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. Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  3. Allspice + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,302 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Beef + allspicetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,940 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Lean beef
Provides the main meat structure and savory flavor of the sausage.
Beef suet
Adds fat that keeps the sausage moist and tender during frying.
Powdered allspice
Adds warm, aromatic flavor to the meat.

The step that matters

Fry in hot fat until well-browned. Frying in hot fat browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, developing flavor, and cooks the meat through. Too cool a pan steams the sausages and leaves them pale and greasy.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Jalapenofits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, 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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