Name: English Way of Roasting Pig
Ingredients: sage; ½ cup saltish bread, large piece; coarse sea salt; black pepper; butter; flour; gravy from the pig

Why it works: Sage and pepper 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 ↓

English Way of Roasting Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pig

Stuff the pig with sage, saltish bread, salt, and pepper, then sew it up.
Skewer the legs back to ensure the under part crisps.

Roast and baste

Roast over a brisk fire until thoroughly dry.
Rub the pig with butter using a dry cloth.
Dredge flour over the pig and do not touch it again until serving.
Carefully scrape off the flour with a blunt knife.
Rub the pig with a buttered cloth.

Prepare the sauce and serve

Remove the head while at the fire, take out the brains, and mix them with the gravy.
Remove the upper part of the head down to the snout.
Cut the pig down the back and breast, and place it in a dish.
Chop the sage and bread finely, then mix with melted butter.
Pour the sauce into the dish after splitting the pig and garnish with ears and jaws.

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.

Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,115 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sage + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,778 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter: Adds fat and richness, helping the skin brown and turn golden as it roasts.
Flour: Dredged over the pig, it forms a dry crust that crisps and browns during roasting.
Saltish bread: Stuffed inside the pig, it soaks up juices and flavour as the meat cooks.
Sage: Stuffed and chopped into the sauce, it adds aromatic herb flavour.

The step that matters

Roast over a brisk fire until thoroughly dry. The skin must dry out before it can crisp. Moisture left on the surface steams the skin instead of browning it, so the drying stage matters.

Swap the sage

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

Parsleyfits about as well
Nutmegfits about as well
Sagethe original
Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, butter, flour. 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.

Brown Bread461 recipes

White Bread80 recipes

Bread Omelette60 recipes

Oatmeal Bread51 recipes

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English Way of Roasting Pig