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Roast Pig

A whole young pig roasted with onion dressing, salt, butter, and optional wine, 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 fowls, adding chopped onion; set aside.

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

  3. Salt the inside and stuff with the prepared dressing, ensuring it is full and plump.

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

Roast

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

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

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

Make the gravy and serve

  1. To make gravy, skim off most grease, stir in flour, add water to achieve desired consistency, and season with pepper; boil once.

  2. Strain the gravy and add wine if desired; serve in a gravy boat.

  3. Place the pig on a large, hot platter, garnished with parsley or celery tops, and decorate with a green wreath and a sprig of celery.

  4. To carve, cut off the head first, then split down the back, remove hams and shoulders, and separate the ribs.

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

Young pig
Is the main cut of meat, so its size and age set the cooking time and yield.
Butter
Basting fat that helps the skin brown and crisp as it roasts.
Flour
Thickens the drippings into a smooth gravy.
Baking soda
Raises the skin's pH slightly, which can help it brown and crisp.

The step that matters

Keeping the skin crisp while roasting. Rubbing the skin with melted butter as it starts to smoke, and basting regularly, keeps the surface from drying out and helps it brown. Skin that dries early can turn leathery and stop crisping.

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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