Why it works: Clove and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Sausage
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the mixture
Grind the lean and fat pork in a sausage mill or chop it very fine.
Mix the ground meat with sage, black pepper, salt, mace, cloves, and nutmeg using your hands.
Taste the mixture to ensure the seasoning is correct.
Preserve
Pack the sausage mixture into stone jars and pour melted lard on top for preservation.
Alternatively, fill muslin bags with the sausage mixture, dip in melted lard, and hang in a cool cellar.
If using hog intestines, prepare them by soaking in salt and water for three days, then rinse and stuff with the sausage mixture. Tie the stuffed intestines and hang them in a cool place.
Cook
To cook, fry the sausages in a clean, dry frying pan until brown, turning to cook both sides evenly.
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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Clove + nutmegtop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together8,686 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Sage + nutmegtop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together642 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,388 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together6,557 recipes
Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
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Sage + clovetop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together731 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Lean fresh pork
- Provides the main lean meat that forms the body of the sausage.
- Fat pork
- Adds fat that keeps the sausage moist and juicy as it cooks.
- Powdered sage
- Contributes the characteristic savoury, herbal aroma of the sausage.
- Black pepper
- Adds a sharp, mildly hot aroma that balances the rich pork.
The step that matters
Taste the mixture before packing. Seasoning is only evenly distributed when the ground meat is thoroughly mixed by hand, and it cannot be corrected once the sausage is stuffed or jarred.
Swap the mace
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, sage, pepper, clove, nutmeg):
- Marjoramfits better
- Allspicefits better
- Thymefits better
- Macethe original
Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sage, pepper, clove, nutmeg. 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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