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Pork, Belly Of, Rolled and Boiled

A salted and pickled pork belly rolled, boiled, and cooled.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Pork, Belly Of, Rolled and Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the pork

  1. Mix ½ teaspoon powdered saltpetre with 2 tablespoons coarse sea salt and sprinkle the mixture over the pork belly.

  2. Let the pork sit for 3 days.

  3. Wash the pork in cold water.

  4. Dry the pork with a cloth.

Prepare the roll

  1. Lay the pork skin side down and remove the bones.

  2. Cover the inside with thinly sliced pickled gherkins.

  3. Sprinkle powdered mace and black pepper over the gherkins.

  4. Roll the meat tightly.

  5. Bind the roll securely with tape.

Boil and cool

  1. Place the rolled meat in a saucepan with onions, cloves, bay leaves, parsley, and thyme.

  2. Bring the liquid to a boil.

  3. Skim the surface carefully.

  4. Reduce to a simmer until the meat is cooked, about 30 minutes per pound.

  5. Once cooked, place the meat between two dishes with a weight on top.

  6. Let it cool completely.

  7. Do not remove the bandages until ready to serve.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork belly
Provides the fatty, tender meat that becomes the main body of the dish.
Saltpetre
Cures the meat, keeping it pink and giving it a cured flavour during the three-day rest.
Coarse sea salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the pork during curing.
Pickled gherkins
Add acidity and a sharp contrast to the rich, fatty meat.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until cooked. A rolled, bound joint cooked at a hard boil can toughen and fall apart unevenly. A gentle simmer cooks the meat through while keeping it tender and moist.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper, onion, clove, parsley, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, onion, clove, parsley, thyme. 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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