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Fillet of Pork

A pork fillet stuffed with herb‑flavored bread crumbs, roasted and served with a thickened gravy and lemon‑flavored apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Marjoram and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 507 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Fillet of Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut a fillet from a leg of fresh pork and remove the bone.

  2. Make a stuffing by mixing bread crumbs, butter, marjoram, sage, salt, and pepper. Add the beaten egg yolks to bind the stuffing, then fill the cavity where the bone was removed.

  3. Score the skin of the pork in circles and rub in some powdered sage.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the pork slowly for several hours until fully cooked, basting initially with lard and then with its own gravy.

  2. Remove excess fat from the gravy and thicken it with flour.

  3. Serve the pork with the gravy and a side of thick apple sauce flavored with lemon.

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. Marjoram + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

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

  2. Marjoram + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

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

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

  5. Marjoram + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,265 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh pork fillet
Forms the main meat, which cooks slowly to become tender and juicy.
Bread or cracker crumbs
Absorb fat and juices, giving the stuffing body and a soft texture.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stuffing, keeping it moist as it cooks.
Beaten egg yolks
Bind the stuffing together so it holds its shape when sliced.
Flour
Thickens the defatted pan gravy into a smooth sauce.

The step that matters

Roast the pork slowly until fully cooked. A large stuffed cut heats unevenly, so low, slow roasting lets the centre cook through without drying the outer meat. Basting keeps the surface moist and helps the skin brown.

Swap the marjoram

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, bread, butter, sage, pepper, egg, 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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