Skip to main content
Main

Sucking Pig

A whole pig stuffed with a forcemeat mixture, roasted and then stewed in a sauce of stock, onion, lemon rind, spices, and mushroom ketchup.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and sage match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sucking Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the forcemeat

  1. Wipe the pig dry inside and out, then stuff it with the forcemeat mixture.

  2. Combine beef suet, bread crumbs, parsley, sage, pepper, and salt in a bowl, then bind the mixture with beaten egg yolks and milk if needed.

Roast and stew

  1. Sew up the slit securely and roast the pig until three-quarters cooked.

  2. Remove the pig, cut it into neat pieces, and place in a stewpan.

  3. Barely cover with stock and add onion, lemon rind, salt, nutmeg, cayenne, parsley, and thyme.

  4. Stew gently for one hour, then strain the sauce.

Finish the sauce and serve

  1. Thicken the sauce with brown thickening or butter rolled in flour.

  2. Add mushroom ketchup and anchovy sauce, then stew for an additional 15 minutes.

  3. Serve the pig on a hot dish with the 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. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Sucking pig
Forms the main body of the dish, providing the meat that is roasted and then stewed.
Egg yolks
Bind the forcemeat so it holds together when stuffed and cooked.
Beef suet
Adds fat and richness to the forcemeat, keeping it moist during cooking.
Grated bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the forcemeat body and structure.
Brown thickening
Thickens the strained stew liquid into a smooth, coating sauce.
Mushroom ketchup
Adds savoury depth and umami to the sauce.

The step that matters

Roast until three-quarters cooked, then sew and stew gently. Stopping the roast early leaves the meat partly cooked so it finishes tender in the stock. Gentle stewing avoids a tough, dry texture, since high heat toughens muscle proteins.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, bread, parsley, sage, pepper, egg, milk):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, bread, parsley, sage, pepper, egg, milk. 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

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesRoast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipes