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Beef Sausages

Beef sausage patties made from finely chopped steak seasoned with thyme, salt, pepper, mustard, lemon juice, and lemon peel, then fried.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,973 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Beef Sausages

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the patties

  1. Chop the steak piece finely or have your butcher do it.

  2. Season the meat with thyme, salt, pepper, mustard, lemon juice, and lemon peel.

  3. Form the mixture into round, flat cakes.

  4. Roll the cakes in flour.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry in hot butter or dripping, turning as they brown.

  2. Drain 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. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

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

  4. Thyme + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together913 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Steak
Provides the meat that forms the body and bite of the patties.
Mustard
Adds sharpness and a savoury depth to the seasoned meat.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich flavour of the beef.
Flour
Forms a dry coating that helps the patties brown in the fat.
Butter or dripping
Conducts heat for frying and adds richness and browning to the outside.

The step that matters

Fry in hot butter or dripping, turning as they brown. The fat must be hot enough to brown the flour coating quickly. Frying in cool fat lets the patties absorb grease and steam instead of forming a crisp, browned crust.

Swap the mustard

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against thyme, pepper, lemon, flour, butter. 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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