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Roast Pig

A whole pig roasted on a spit with bread stuffing, butter, and optional sage, heart, and liver.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage 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 ↓

Roast Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the inside of the pig with salt, pepper, and sage if desired.

  2. Spread butter on one side of the bread slices, sprinkle with salt, pepper, sage, and minced onion if desired.

  3. Moisten the bread with hot water, fill the pig's body with the stuffing, and sew or tie it closed.

Roast

  1. Place the pig on a spit, with a pint of water and salt and pepper in the dripping pan.

  2. Roast the pig at a distance from the fire, basting as it cooks, and gradually move it closer.

  3. Cook for 15 minutes per pound, or until the eyes drop out.

  4. When done, rub the pig with a cloth soaked in butter until the skin is crisp.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Dredge flour into the gravy, boil, and add chopped heart and liver if using, then serve.

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 + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Wheat + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together209 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sage + livertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together229 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1,8-cineol (eucalyptus, camphor).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig
Forms the main meat, which cooks slowly until tender and browned on the outside.
Wheat bread
Soaked in hot water, it makes a moist stuffing that fills the cavity and flavours the meat.
Butter
Enriches the stuffing and, brushed on the skin at the end, helps it crisp and brown.
Flour
Thickens the pan juices into a gravy.

The step that matters

Roasting at a distance, then moving closer. Slow heat from farther away cooks the large body through before the skin darkens. Moving it closer gradually finishes the skin without burning it, and basting keeps the surface moist.

Swap the sage

The recipe marks sage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, wheat, bread, butter, flour, liver):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Sagethe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

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