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Roast Pig

A whole young pig roasted with a fruit and spice mixture, served with apple garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
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Why it works: Corn and anise work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 25 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol, which smells smoky, clove. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk, wheat (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the pig

  1. Clean the pig and wash it in cold water.

  2. Dry it off.

Make the stuffing

  1. In a saucepan, cook the apples with ⅓ cup cold water until soft.

  2. Stir in 3 tablespoons sugar.

  3. Mix 2 teaspoons corn starch with 1 tablespoon cold water and add to the apples.

  4. Boil for 5 minutes.

  5. In another saucepan, cover prunes with cold water and cook until soft.

  6. Add 3 tablespoons sugar 15 minutes before done.

  7. Measure prunes without juice and mix with the same quantity of apples.

  8. Add 1 tablespoon anise seed, rubbed and sifted.

Stuff and roast

  1. Stuff the pig with the mixture, sew it up, and place a small block of wood in its mouth to keep it open.

  2. Season with salt and pepper, and dredge with flour.

  3. In a baking pan, melt 2 tablespoons butter with 2 teaspoons flour for 1 minute, then add ½ pint hot water and the pig.

  4. Brown the pig and baste often, adding a spoonful of hot water as needed.

  5. Cook for 2.5 hours.

Finish and serve

  1. After cooking, add ½ pint water to the gravy, stir, and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Boil for a few minutes.

  3. Cut the cord and remove it.

  4. Take out the block from the pig's mouth and place a red apple inside.

  5. Garnish with parsley.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Corn + anisetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together25 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-methylphenol (smoky, clove).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together34,118 recipes

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

  3. Anise + parsleytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Anise + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together80 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Corn + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Young pig
Is the main meat, cooked whole and stuffed before roasting.
Sour apples
Break down into a tart, moist filling that balances the sweet prunes and rich meat.
Dried prunes
Soften and add sweetness and body to the stuffing.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the pan, helping the pig brown and flavour the gravy.
Corn starch
Thickens the cooked apple mixture into a spoonable filling.

The step that matters

Brown the pig and baste often. Frequent basting with hot liquid keeps the surface moist while the fat renders and the skin browns. Without it, the skin can dry out or scorch before the long roast is done.

Flavor stand-ins for the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, corn, anise, pepper, flour, butter, parsley):

  1. Lemonbetter flavor fit
  2. Limebetter flavor fit
  3. Orangebetter flavor fit
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, corn, anise, pepper, flour, butter, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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