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Hand of Fresh Pork

A pork leg or shoulder stuffed with forcemeat or seasoned bread, then boiled or roasted and served with string beans or salad.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and beans are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,000 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Hand of Fresh Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Bone the leg or shoulder of young pork without damaging the skin.

  2. Stuff the boned pork with forcemeat or seasoned bread stuffing.

  3. Sew the top closed.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil or roast the stuffed pork until cooked through.

  2. Serve with string beans or a fresh green salad.

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 + beanstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

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

  2. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Bread + beanstop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together332 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Young pork leg or shoulder
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes tender and juicy as it cooks through.
Forcemeat or bread stuffing
Adds seasoning and moisture, and absorbs flavourful juices from the surrounding meat.

The step that matters

Cook the stuffed pork until cooked through. A stuffed joint is dense, so heat must travel to the centre to cook both the meat and the stuffing fully. Outer meat can look done while the middle stays underdone.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, bread):

  1. Lima beansfits about as well
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Beansthe original
  4. Peasfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, bread. 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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