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To Roast a Pig

A whole young pig stuffed with liver forcemeat, spit-roasted, basted, and served split in two.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Randolph · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 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

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

  2. Chop the liver fine and mix it with crumbs of bread, chopped onion and parsley, with pepper and salt.

  3. Make the mixture into a paste with butter and an egg.

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

Roast

  1. Spit the pig, and have a clear fire to roast it.

  2. Baste with salt and water at first.

  3. Rub the pig frequently with a lump of lard wrapped in a piece of clean linen; this makes it much more crisp than basting from the dripping pan.

Carve and serve

  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.

  4. Lay it in the dish with the head, ears, and feet, which have been cut off, placed on each side.

  5. Put the stuffing in a bowl with a glass of wine, and as much dripping as will make it sufficiently liquid.

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

By Mary Randolph. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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

Pig (in the method)
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole on the spit until crisp outside.
Lard (in the method)
Rubbed over the skin during roasting, it fat-coats the surface to encourage crispness.
Butter (in the method)
Binds the liver and bread mixture into a paste with added richness and moisture.
Egg (in the method)
Helps bind the stuffing paste together so it holds its shape.
Bread crumbs (in the method)
Absorb moisture and give the stuffing body and a softer texture.
Red wine
Adds acidity and flavour to the stuffing and sauce liquid.

The step that matters

Rubbing the pig with lard wrapped in linen. Basting with fat rather than pan drippings helps the skin brown and crisp. Rubbing it frequently keeps the surface evenly coated so it does not dry out or stay pale.

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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