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Leg of Pork, Good As Goose

A roasted leg of pork stuffed with onion, apple, sage, breadcrumbs, and butter, served with gravy and apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper 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 ↓

Leg of Pork, Good As Goose

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Parboil the leg of pork and remove the skin.

  2. In a bowl, mix the minced onion, chopped apple, bread crumbs, chopped sage leaves, butter, pepper, salt, and egg yolk to make the stuffing.

  3. Make a slit in the knuckle of the pork and fill it with the stuffing, securing it well.

Roast and serve

  1. Place the pork in the oven and baste it liberally.

  2. Half an hour before it is done, sprinkle the savory powder (bread crumbs, powdered sage, pepper, and salt) over the pork.

  3. Do not baste the meat after adding the savory powder.

  4. Serve with brown gravy and apple sauce.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Apple + sagetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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 leg
Forms the main body of the dish and provides the meat that is roasted and served.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the stuffing, giving it body and a soft texture.
Egg yolk
Binds the stuffing ingredients together so they hold their shape when filled.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stuffing, keeping it moist and tender.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and sweetness as it cooks inside the stuffing.
Apple
Adds moisture and a mild sweetness that balances the savory sage and pork.

The step that matters

Timing the savory powder. Sprinkling the powder half an hour before the end lets it toast and brown on the surface without burning. Basting after it is added would wash the coating off, so the record's instruction not to baste then matters.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, onion, bread, sage, butter, pepper, egg):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Applethe original
  4. Limefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, onion, bread, sage, butter, pepper, egg. 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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