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Boiled Leg of Pork

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 590 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Boiled Leg of Pork

Ingredients

Directions

  1. If the pork is pre-salted, check how long it has been in pickle and adjust cooking time accordingly.

  2. Place the pork in a pot and cover it with cold water.

  3. Bring the water to a boil gradually, skimming off any scum that rises.

  4. Simmer gently until the pork is tender, avoiding a rapid boil to prevent the knuckle from falling apart.

  5. Garnish with carrots, turnips, parsnips, and parsley.

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. Turnip + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together590 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Parsnip + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

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

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, carrot, turnip, parsnip):

  1. Thymefits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Celeryfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, carrot, turnip, parsnip. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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