Skip to main content
Main

Collared Sucking Pig

A whole pig is seasoned, boiled, and served with its own boiling liquid.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Collared Sucking Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the inside of the cleaned and boned pig with pepper, salt, and powdered herbs.

  2. Roll the pig up tightly.

  3. Bind it in a cloth, tying it securely.

Boil

  1. Prepare a boiling liquid with water, vinegar, salt, cloves, mace, peppercorns, and savoury herbs.

  2. Boil the pig softly in the liquid until tender.

  3. Remove the pig.

Set and serve

  1. Tighten the bandage when nearly cold.

  2. Place the pig in a pan.

  3. Pour the cold boiling liquid over it.

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. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Vinegar + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Clove + white winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,715 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

What each ingredient does

Sucking pig
Provides the meat that becomes tender and sets into a firm, sliceable roll.
Vinegar
Adds acidity to the cooking liquid, giving a sharp, tangy flavour to the meat.
Cloves
Contribute a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the cooking liquid.
Mace
Adds a delicate, aromatic spice flavour to the cooking liquid.
Peppercorns
Add a sharp, aromatic heat that seasons the cooking liquid.
Savoury herbs
Add aromatic, savoury flavour to the cooking liquid and the meat.

The step that matters

Tighten the bandage when nearly cold. As the pig cools, gelatin from the skin and connective tissue sets and firms the roll. Tightening the cloth while it is nearly cold keeps the roll compact, so slices hold together.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, vinegar, clove, white wine):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Tarragonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, clove, white wine. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes