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Roast Loin of Pork

A roasted pork loin seasoned with salt, pepper, and oil, served with brown gravy, apple sauce, and optional sage and onion stuffing.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Roast Loin of Pork

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Score the skin of the pork loin at equal distances about 1 inch apart.

  2. Brush the skin with salad oil and season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

Roast and serve

  1. Place the pork in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Baste liberally with butter or dripping at first.

  3. When done, serve on a hot dish with brown gravy and apple sauce.

  4. If desired, serve sage and onion stuffing on a separate dish.

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

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

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

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pork loin
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked through by slow roasting in the oven.
Salad oil
Helps the seasoning stick to the skin and encourages even browning.
Butter or dripping
Adds fat and flavour while basting, helping the surface brown and stay moist.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the skin and helps draw out moisture so it can crisp.

The step that matters

Score the skin evenly. Even scoring lets the fat render and the skin crisp uniformly; uneven cuts can leave tough, chewy patches or burn in places.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Sagethe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, butter, apple, sauce, onion. 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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