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Pork, Spare Rib Of, Roasted

A roasted pork spare rib served with apple sauce, mashed potatoes, and mustard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,668 recipes. Both carry sotolon, which smells curry, maple. The science ↓

Pork, Spare Rib Of, Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Roast

  1. Preheat your oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Lay the thick end of the spare rib nearest to the fire.

  3. Roast for 2-3 hours, depending on thickness.

Joint and baste

  1. Joint the meat and crack the ribs across.

  2. Dust the rib with flour and baste with butter.

  3. Rub dried sage leaves through a sieve and set aside.

  4. About 15 minutes before it's done, baste with butter and sprinkle with sage.

Serve

  1. Serve with apple sauce, mashed potatoes, and mustard.

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. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  2. Potato + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,340 recipes

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

  3. Sage + mustardtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together372 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Sage + appletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

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

  5. Sage + potatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together386 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork spare rib
The main protein; slow roasting softens its connective tissue and renders fat.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the surface and helps it brown during basting.
Flour
Dusted on the rib to help form a drier surface that browns more readily.
Dried sage
Contributes a savoury, herbal aroma to the crust.

The step that matters

Basting about 15 minutes before the end. Butter contains milk solids that brown quickly and can scorch if left too long at high heat, so the final baste and sage go on late, once the surface is nearly done.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, flour, butter, sage, sauce, potato, mustard):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Lemonfits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, flour, butter, sage, sauce, potato, mustard. 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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