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Roast Pork

Roast pork seasoned with salt, pepper, and larding, cooked with turnips and optional aromatics.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Roast Pork

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Roast Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Select a piece of pork.

  2. Clean the skin with a damp cloth.

  3. If using ham with skin, score the skin with a knife.

  4. Trim the skin with cloves and parsley if desired.

  5. Sprinkle salt and pepper over the ham.

Sear and roast

  1. Heat grease in a roasting pan until hot.

  2. Sear the roast quickly on all sides to seal in juices.

  3. Add turnips and boiling water to the roasting pan.

  4. Leave the roast skin-side up.

  5. Baste frequently.

  6. If skin and fat are removed, lard the meat with strips of larding pork.

  7. Add turnip, celeriac, cloves, and peppercorns.

  8. Rub with garlic if desired.

  9. Season as before.

  10. Baste frequently until cooked through and browned.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Turnip + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + garlictop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together668 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Pepper + garlictop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,090 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + turniptop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,252 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork
Provides the meat that becomes tender and juicy as it cooks slowly.
Grease
Conducts heat for the initial sear and helps the surface brown.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and flavour to the pan juices as they cook.
Boiling water
Creates steam and moisture in the pan, keeping the roast from drying out.

The step that matters

Sear the roast quickly on all sides. A hot sear browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, building flavour and colour. Searing does not truly seal in juices, so the basting and gentle cooking are what keep the meat moist.

Swap the clove

The recipe marks clove as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper, turnip, garlic):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, turnip, garlic. 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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