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To Roast a Pig

A method for roasting a fat pig, stuffed with liver, bread crumbs, onion, parsley, pepper, salt, butter, and egg, then spit‑roasted and basted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Randolph (1762–1828) · From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 17,451 recipes mention both. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

To Roast a Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pig

  1. Ensure the pig is very fat, nicely cleaned, and not too large to lie in the dish.

  2. Chop the liver finely and mix it with bread crumbs, chopped onion, parsley, pepper, salt, butter, and an egg.

  3. Stuff the body well with the paste and sew it up.

Roast and baste

  1. Spit the pig and roast it over a clear fire.

  2. Baste the pig with salt and water at first, then rub it frequently with a lump of lard wrapped in a piece of clean linen.

Carve and make the gravy

  1. When the pig is done, take off the head, separate the face from the chop, cut both in two, and take off the ears.

  2. Take out the stuffing.

  3. Split the pig in two parts lengthways, lay it in the dish with the head, ears, and feet cut off, placed on each side.

  4. Put the stuffing in a bowl with a glass of wine and enough dripping to make it sufficiently liquid.

  5. Put some of the liquid under the pig and serve the rest in a boat.

Barbecue shote quarters

  1. (Barbecue Shote) Take off the head and feet, cut the pig into four quarters, each weighing six pounds.

  2. Take a fore-quarter, make several incisions between the ribs, and stuff it with rich forcemeat.

  3. Put the quarter in a pan with a pint of water, two cloves of garlic, pepper, salt, two gills of red wine, and two of mushroom catsup.

  4. Bake it, and thicken the gravy with butter and brown flour.

  5. Ensure it is jointed, and cut the ribs across before it is cooked, or it cannot be carved well.

  6. Lay it in the dish with the ribs uppermost.

  7. If it is not sufficiently brown, add a little burnt sugar to the gravy and garnish with balls.

By Mary Randolph (1762–1828). 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. See the original page.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together27,090 recipes

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

  3. Clove + red winetop 8% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together849 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together11,368 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Red wine + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together2,075 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Liver (in the method)
Binds with the bread crumbs and egg to form a moist, flavourful stuffing paste.
Egg (in the method)
Binds the stuffing paste so it holds together during roasting.
Butter (in the method)
Adds richness and helps the gravy and stuffing stay moist and glossy.
Lard (in the method)
Rubbed over the skin to add fat, helping it brown and crisp as it roasts.
Red wine
Adds acidity and depth to the gravy and stuffing liquid.
Brown flour (in the method)
Thickens the gravy so it coats the meat.

The step that matters

Cut the ribs across before cooking. Raw meat and bone are much easier to joint cleanly than cooked meat, which tends to crumble. Cutting the ribs before roasting lets the quarter be carved neatly when served.

Flavor stand-ins for the garlic

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

  1. Thymebetter flavor fit
  2. Rosemarybetter flavor fit
  3. Allspicebetter flavor fit
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, red wine, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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