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Baked Fresh Pork

A roasted pork served with apples, onions, carrots, turnips, and gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Baked Fresh Pork

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pork

  1. Scrape the skin of the pork with a dull knife and wash it thoroughly.

  2. Score the skin in little squares.

  3. If the skin is removed, trim excess fat.

  4. Using a sharp knife, cut out the backbone to make carving easier.

  5. In a roasting pan, place slices of carrot, turnip, and onion, along with the cloves, peppercorns, and parsley or celery.

  6. Lay the pork on top of the vegetables and place the pan in a 350°F (175°C) oven to brown the meat.

  7. Season the pork with salt, pepper, and powdered sage.

  8. Cook the pork for 15 minutes per pound.

Prepare the onions

  1. An hour before the pork is done, peel the small onions without breaking the layers.

  2. In a pan, combine the onions, sugar, butter, salt, and pepper.

  3. Place the onion mixture in the oven and shake occasionally for even browning.

Prepare the apples

  1. Wash and quarter the apples, removing the cores.

  2. Place the apples in a small pan with butter and bake until tender but not broken.

Serve

  1. When the pork is done, place it on a hot dish and arrange the apples and onions around it.

  2. Serve with plain boiled potatoes and brown gravy.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  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. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork
Forms the main roasted meat, with fat and skin that brown and crisp in the oven.
Onions
Sugar and butter caramelise the small onions, adding sweetness and browning at the surface.
Apples
Tart flesh softens when baked in butter, adding acidity that balances the rich pork.
Sugar
Promotes browning on the onions and adds a touch of sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the onions and apples brown and turn tender.

The step that matters

Baking the apples until tender but not broken. Apples held too long or at too high heat lose their shape and turn to mush. Cooking gently until the flesh softens while the pieces hold together keeps their texture and tartness.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, carrot, turnip, clove, parsley, pepper, sage):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, carrot, turnip, clove, parsley, pepper, sage. 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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