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Roast Pig

A whole pig roasted with a breadcrumb and spice stuffing, basted with butter, served on a platter with parsley and lettuce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 642 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pig

  1. Kill the pig and scald it in boiling water until the hair can be pulled off easily.

  2. Wipe the pig dry and brush off any remaining hair.

  3. Cut open the pig and remove the entrails.

  4. Wash the pig thoroughly with cold water, then wash it with soda and water, then wash it with salt and water.

  5. Rinse and dry the pig.

Make and add the stuffing

  1. In a bowl, mix bread crumbs, chopped onion, sage, melted butter, pepper, nutmeg, salt, and warm water or milk.

  2. Beat in the eggs.

  3. Stuff the pig with the mixture and sew it up.

  4. Position the legs appropriately.

  5. Dry the pig and dredge it with flour.

Roast and serve

  1. Place the pig in a roasting pan with a little hot, slightly salted water.

  2. Baste with butter and water as it warms, then baste with drippings once it starts to cook.

  3. Rub the skin with melted butter every five minutes after it begins to smoke or steam.

  4. Roast for about two hours, ensuring a steady fire.

  5. Serve on a large platter with parsley and lettuce around it, and place a sprig of cauliflower or parsley in its mouth.

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 + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together642 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  5. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the stuffing so it holds together around the bread crumbs.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and liquid to give the stuffing body and moisture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the skin brown as it roasts.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and flavor to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Rub the skin with melted butter every five minutes once it begins to smoke or steam. Regular basting with fat keeps the skin from drying out and helps it brown evenly, giving crisp, golden skin rather than a dry or patchy surface.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sage, butter, pepper, nutmeg, egg, milk. 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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