Why it works: Lemon and sage 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 ↓
Pig, Sucking, Gravy for
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wipe the pig thoroughly, stuff it, and sew up the slit securely with soft thread.
Truss the pig like a hare, with fore-legs skewered back and hind-legs drawn forward.
Roast
Rub the pig with clarified butter or fresh salad oil and place it before a clear, brisk fire.
Baste constantly to ensure the crackling is crisp and brown.
Halfway through roasting, hang a flat iron from the spit to shade the middle from the heat.
Tie some butter in muslin and rub the pig with it two or three times while roasting.
When done, cut off the head before removing the pig from the fire.
Make the sauce and serve
Take out the brains, chop them with the stuffing, and mix in the gravy that has dripped from the pig.
Add a cup of veal or beef gravy, cayenne, lemon juice, and grated nutmeg.
To serve, cut the pig open and lay the sides back to back on a dish, placing half of the head at each end.
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.
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Lemon + sagetop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together887 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Nutmeg + sagetop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together642 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27,047 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,388 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
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Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together11,318 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Sucking pig
- Provides the main meat, whose skin crisps into crackling during roasting.
- Clarified butter or fresh salad oil
- Fat that helps the skin brown and crisp in the heat.
- Veal or beef gravy
- Adds savoury moisture and rich meaty flavour to the stuffing and sauce.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the rich fat and gravy.
- Stuffing of choice
- Fills the cavity, flavouring the meat while it roasts and adding bulk to the dish.
The step that matters
Basting constantly. Fat and moisture on the skin let it blister and brown evenly. If it dries out, the crackling turns leathery or burns in patches before the meat is cooked through.
Swap the nutmeg
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, veal, pepper, lemon, sage):
- Marjoramfits better
- Parsleyfits better
- Thymefits better
- Nutmegthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against butter, veal, pepper, lemon, sage. 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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