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Baked Fresh Pork

A baked pork pie with bacon, potatoes, onions, and gravy encased in pie crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,388 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked Fresh Pork

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Line the sides of a deep pie dish with pie crust.

Assemble

  1. Layer the bottom with thin sliced bacon, followed by sliced potatoes, onions, and lean fresh pork.

  2. Season the layers with coarse sea salt, black pepper, and sage.

  3. Pour gravy and enough water to thicken over the layers.

  4. Cover with the remaining pie crust.

Bake

  1. Bake for 1.5 hours, covering with thick brown paper if it browns too much.

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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 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

Pork
Provides the main meat flavour and, as it cooks, savoury richness throughout the filling.
Potatoes
Add starch that absorbs cooking juices and gives the filling body and soft texture.
Bacon
Releases fat as it cooks, adding savoury flavour and moisture to the layers.
Onions
Contribute savoury sweetness and aroma that deepens as they cook.
Gravy
Adds concentrated meat flavour and moisture to the filling.

The step that matters

Covering the browning crust. The crust can darken faster than the filling cooks through over 1.5 hours of baking. A sheet of thick brown paper shields it from excess browning while heat keeps reaching the pork and potatoes beneath.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, onion, pork, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, onion, pork, pepper. 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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