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Piggie, or Sucking-pig

A whole pig stuffed with bread crumb mixture, roasted in an oven.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 887 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Piggie, or Sucking-pig

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the stuffing

  1. Make a stuffing with bread crumbs, suet, sage, pepper, salt, and lemon peel.

  2. If eggs are available, moisten the stuffing with an egg and some water.

Stuff and truss

  1. Stuff the pig and sew it up with strong thread.

  2. Truss the pig with fore-legs skewered back and hind-legs forward.

Roast

  1. Place the pig on a trivet in a dripping pan with 1 pint of water.

  2. Rub the pig all over with butter and set it in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  3. Roast for two hours.

  4. Optionally, rub the pig with egg white before roasting for a crisp finish.

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 + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the stuffing and give it a soft, absorbent body.
Suet
Adds fat that keeps the stuffing and meat moist and rich during roasting.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the skin brown and turn golden in the oven.
Egg
Binds the stuffing together and helps it hold its moisture.
Lemon peel
Adds bright aroma that lightens the richness of the fat.

The step that matters

Rubbing the pig with butter and roasting it hot. The skin must be dry and evenly coated so it can brown and crisp in a hot oven. Fat conducts heat across the surface, and moisture left on the skin steams it instead of browning it.

Swap the sage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, lemon, egg, butter. 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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