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Pork Roll

A seasoned pork roll baked with carrots, served with boiled macaroni and tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,485 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Pork Roll

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the meat

  1. Chop the raw lean pork and fat salt pork finely using a meat chopper.

  2. Soak the white bread crumbs in cold water until soft, then squeeze them dry.

  3. Combine the bread crumbs with the chopped meat, onion, parsley, sage, thyme, and black pepper. Mix thoroughly.

  4. Form the mixture into a compact roll and dredge it thickly with flour.

Bake and serve

  1. Heat the fat in a frying pan and brown the roll on all sides.

  2. Transfer the roll to a baking pan and bake at 400°F (200°C) for one hour, basting every ten minutes with water.

  3. Half an hour before serving, add the parboiled carrots to the baking pan.

  4. Once done, place the roll on a platter, surround it with plain boiled macaroni, dot with carrots, and pour over seasoned tomato 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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,485 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Raw lean pork
Provides the main meaty body and structure of the roll.
Fat salt pork
Adds fat that keeps the roll moist and adds flavor during baking.
White bread crumbs
Soaked and squeezed, they bind the meat and help keep the roll tender.
Flour
Dredged on the outside, it helps the roll brown and form a crust.

The step that matters

Browning the roll in the frying pan. Searing the outside before baking builds browned flavor and a firm crust, which helps the roll hold its shape while it cooks through.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, bread, parsley, sage, thyme, 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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