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Baked Pig

A whole pig baked with a cornmeal dressing and seasoned with lard, butter, pepper, thyme, and red pepper pods.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and thyme are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Baked Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pig

  1. Score the pig in squares and rub lard all over it.

  2. Make a dressing by mixing cornmeal and coarse sea salt with boiling water to form a stiff dough.

  3. Shape the dough into pans and bake until browned.

  4. Break up the baked dressing and mix in butter, pepper, and thyme.

  5. Fill the pig with the dressing, sew it up, and place it on its knees in a pan.

Bake and baste

  1. Add enough water to the pan to cook the pig.

  2. Baste frequently with the gravy and add the red pepper pods.

  3. Turn the pig while baking and continue to baste until fully cooked.

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 + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  2. Butter + thymetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,758 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pig
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole and carved for serving.
Cornmeal
Forms the stiff dough that bakes into the dressing and gives it body.
Lard
Adds fat to the skin, helping it brown and crisp as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the baked dressing.

The step that matters

Baste frequently and turn the pig while baking. Regular basting with the pan juices keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly, while turning distributes heat so the whole pig cooks through rather than drying out on one side.

Swap the thyme

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Sagefits about as well
  3. Thymethe original
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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