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Roast Loin of Pork

A roasted pork loin seasoned with sage, onions, and spices, served with apple sauce and pickles.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Roast Loin of Pork

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.

Prepare

  1. Score the skin in strips about ¼ inch apart.

  2. Place the pork in a roasting pan with a little water underneath.

Roast

  1. Cook at 350°F (175°C) at first to heat the meat through without hardening the rind.

  2. If the pork is very lean, rub it with fresh lard or butter before roasting.

  3. Mix bread crumbs, chopped sage, chopped onions, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  4. Bake the mixture separately on a pie dish.

  5. Roast the pork for about 2 hours, allowing more time if it is very fatty.

Gravy and serve

  1. Make gravy by stirring flour into the pork drippings.

  2. Serve with apple sauce and pickles.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Sage + appletop 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 loin
Provides the main meat, and its fat and skin shape juiciness and crackling as it roasts.
Lard or butter
Adds fat to very lean pork, helping keep the meat moist and tender while it roasts.
Bread crumbs
Form the bulk of the stuffing and soak up onion, sage, and savory juices.
Chopped sage
Adds the herbal aroma that defines the stuffing.
Chopped onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma to the stuffing as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the pork drippings into a smooth gravy.

The step that matters

Cook at 350°F at first. Moderate oven heat warms the meat through evenly while keeping the rind from toughening. Higher heat at the start dries and hardens the skin before the interior is cooked.

Swap the apple

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

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

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