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Bologna Sausages, Imitation

A smoked, brined sausage made from beef, pork, suet, bacon, and spices, formed in ox skins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Beef and pork match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,690 recipes. Both carry 12-methyltridecanal, which smells tallowy, beefy. The science ↓

Bologna Sausages, Imitation

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Simmer the meat gently in water until tender.

  2. Chop the meat finely or pass it through a mincing machine 2 or 3 times.

  3. Pound the meat and suet until smooth.

Season and stuff

  1. Season the mixture with pepper, and more sparingly with mace and thyme.

  2. Press the mixture into prepared ox-skins, interspersing strips of bacon.

  3. Tie the skins in 8 or 9-inch lengths.

Cure and smoke

  1. Let them remain in brine for 9 or 10 days.

  2. Hang them in smoke from a peat fire for at least 3 weeks.

  3. Serve cut into thin slices.

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. Beef + porktop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,690 recipes

    Shared aroma: 12-methyltridecanal (tallowy, beefy).

  2. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  4. Pork + thymetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Thyme + macetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,113 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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 meaty body and firm texture of the sausage.
Lean pork
Adds meat flavour and richness while keeping the mixture cohesive.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the sausage moist and smooth-textured after cooking and curing.
Fat bacon
Adds pockets of fat and savoury flavour through the sliced interior.

The step that matters

Pound the meat and suet until smooth. Thorough mashing spreads fat evenly through the lean meat, so the sausage slices cleanly and does not turn greasy or crumbly.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Sagefits better
  3. Rosemaryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pork, thyme, 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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