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Pork, Leg of

A pork leg stuffed with onion, apple, sage, breadcrumbs, butter, and egg, then roasted and served with gravy and apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Pork, Leg of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil the pork leg and remove the skin.

Make the stuffing

  1. In a bowl, mix the minced onion, chopped apple, bread crumbs, chopped sage leaves, butter, pepper, salt, and egg yolk to make the stuffing.

  2. Make a slit in the knuckle of the pork and fill it with the stuffing, securing it tightly.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the pork over a clear fire, basting liberally.

  2. Half an hour before it is done, sprinkle the savory powder over the pork. Do not baste after adding the powder.

  3. Serve with brown gravy and apple 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Apple + sagetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

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

  4. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Pork leg
Forms the main body of the dish, cooking into tender meat around the stuffing.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and give the stuffing body so it holds together.
Egg yolk
Binds the stuffing ingredients together as it sets with heat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the stuffing, keeping it moist.
Onion
Adds savory flavor and moisture to the stuffing.
Apple
Adds sweetness and a touch of acidity that balances the rich pork.

The step that matters

Adding the savory powder. Sprinkling the powder late and not basting afterward keeps the coating from washing off, so it can dry and brown on the surface of the roast.

Swap the apple

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, onion, bread, sage, butter, pepper, egg. 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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