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Roast Pig

A whole pig roasted over a bright fire, basted with butter or salad oil, served with optional stuffing, apple sauce, currant sauce, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and currant are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,918 recipes. Both carry isoamyl acetate, which smells banana, pear. The science ↓

Roast Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Roast

  1. Truss the pig's legs back to allow even roasting and crisping.

  2. Place the pig over a bright fire, ensuring it is not too close.

  3. Rub the pig with butter or salad oil throughout the roasting process.

  4. Hang a flat iron or pig-iron in front of the middle part to prevent scorching.

  5. When half-done, cut off the head and split the body down the middle.

Finish and serve

  1. Chop the brains and mix with the stuffing, gravy, and lemon juice.

  2. Serve the pig with the head on each side and ears at both ends.

  3. Send the remaining gravy to the table in a tureen.

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. Apple + curranttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,918 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  2. Lemon + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,551 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 slowly over the fire until tender and crisp.
Butter or salad oil
Basting fat that keeps the skin moist and promotes browning and crispness.
Gravy
Adds moisture and savoury flavour to the brain and stuffing mixture.

The step that matters

Keep the pig away from the fire. If the pig sits too close to the heat, the outside scorches before the thick meat cooks through. A bright fire at a distance, with a shield to block hot spots, cooks it evenly.

Swap the apple

The recipe marks apple as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, lemon, sauce, currant):

  1. Red currantfits better
  2. Raspberryfits better
  3. Orangefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lemon, sauce, currant. 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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