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Leg of Pork Stuffed

Leg of pork stuffed with a potato, onion, sage, and spice mixture, roasted and served with cranberry sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper 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 ↓

Leg of Pork Stuffed

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Make deep incisions in the leg of pork.

  2. Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash them finely.

  3. Mix the mashed potatoes with the chopped onion, sage, cayenne, salt, and butter.

  4. Fill the incisions in the meat with the potato mixture.

  5. Pull the skin down and skewer it to keep the filling from falling out.

Roast and make gravy

  1. Roast the pork slowly in a 300°F (150°C) oven until done.

  2. Pour the drippings into a pan, remove the fat, and add a little browned flour.

  3. Bring the gravy to a boil, then remove from heat.

Serve

  1. Serve the pork with cranberry 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 + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Sage + cranberrytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together45 recipes

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

  5. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of pork
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking slowly to become tender and juicy.
Potatoes
Mashed and mixed with the seasonings, they make a moist, soft filling for the pork.
Butter
Adds fat to the potato filling, contributing richness and a smoother texture.
Browned flour
Thickens the pan drippings into gravy and adds a toasted, savory flavor.
Onion
Adds savory aroma and depth to the potato filling as it cooks in the dish.

The step that matters

Pull the skin down and skewer it to keep the filling from falling out.. If the skin is not secured over the incisions, the potato filling can escape during roasting, leaving the pork dry and the filling lost in the pan.

Swap the cranberry

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

  1. Lemonfits about as well
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Avocadofits about as well
  4. Cranberrythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, potato, onion, sage, pepper, butter, 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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