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Roast Pig

Roast pig prepared with turkey stuffing, suet, sage, parsley, onion juice, salt, pepper, butter, flour, and salted water, served with apple garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Pig

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash and dry the pig.

  2. Stuff the pig with turkey stuffing, using suet instead of butter, and season with sage, parsley, onion juice, salt, and pepper.

  3. Sew the opening closed and truss the legs forward and hind legs under the body.

  4. Place a corncob in the pig's mouth.

  5. Rub the pig with melted butter.

  6. Dust the pig with pepper, salt, and flour.

Roast and baste

  1. Roast the pig before a moderate fire, turning often, or place it in a pan in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 2 to 2.5 hours.

  2. Add a little salted water to the pan.

  3. Baste the pig with the salted water and melted butter until there is enough dripping.

  4. If the pig is browning too fast, rub it with more butter.

Serve

  1. Serve the pig on a hot platter with an apple in place of the corncob.

  2. Garnish the platter with parsley.

  3. Make gravy as with other roast meat, adding a little wine.

  4. Serve the gravy with apple sauce.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Turkey + sagetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together154 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Sucking pig
Is the main meat, cooked whole so its skin crisps and its flesh stays moist.
Suet
Adds fat and richness to the stuffing, keeping it moist and flavourful as it cooks.
Melted butter
Coats the skin to promote even browning and adds fat for basting.
Flour
Dusted on the skin, it helps form a crisp, browned surface.
Turkey stuffing
Fills the cavity, flavouring the meat and absorbing juices as it cooks.

The step that matters

Basting and browning control. Browning can run ahead of the interior cooking, so the skin may darken too fast. Basting with salted water and butter keeps the surface moist and builds dripping for gravy, while adding butter slows excess browning.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (turkey, butter, sage, parsley, onion, pepper, flour):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against turkey, butter, sage, parsley, onion, pepper, 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.

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