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Roast Pig

A whole young pig is seasoned, stuffed, and roasted, then served with gravy and garnishes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Roast Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare dressing as for "Dressing for Fowls," adding chopped onion.

  2. Wash the pig inside and out, then rinse with water mixed with baking soda.

  3. Dry the pig with a fresh towel, salt the inside, and stuff it with the dressing.

  4. Sew it up and place it in a kneeling position in a dripping pan, tying the legs.

Roast

  1. Pour a little hot salted water into the pan and baste with butter and water as it warms.

  2. When it begins to smoke, rub it with a rag dipped in melted butter to keep the skin crisp.

  3. Roast for 2 to 3 hours, basting occasionally.

Make gravy and serve

  1. Make gravy by skimming off grease, stirring in flour, and adding water to desired consistency.

  2. Season with pepper and boil once, then strain and add wine if desired.

  3. Serve the pig on a large hot platter, garnished with parsley or celery tops, and decorate with a wreath and celery.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig
Provides the main meat, which cooks through slowly while the skin crisps.
Butter
Adds fat that bastes the skin, promoting browning and a crisp, rich surface.
Baking soda
Rinse water with baking soda is meant to help the skin brown and crisp during roasting.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it is stirred into the skimmed pan juices.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and flavor to the dressing stuffed inside the pig.

The step that matters

Rubbing the skin with melted butter once it starts to smoke. Fat helps the skin brown and crisp rather than dry out or toughen. Applying it at the right moment, when the skin is hot, lets it crisp evenly while the meat cooks through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper, wine, parsley, celery):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, wine, parsley, celery. 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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