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Baked Sucking-pig

A whole pig stuffed with a liver, heart, and onion mixture, baked and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 507 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Baked Sucking-pig

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 stuffing

  1. Boil the liver, heart, and lights in salted water until tender.

  2. Heat butter in a frying pan and fry the grated onion slowly.

  3. Mince the heart, liver, and kidneys.

  4. Add the minced mixture to the onion.

  5. Soak the bread in cold water until soft.

  6. Squeeze out excess water from the bread.

  7. Combine the soaked bread with the minced mixture and onion.

  8. Season the stuffing with salt, pepper, sage, and marjoram.

  9. Heat the seasoned stuffing until hot.

Stuff and bake the pig

  1. Stuff the pig with the mixture.

  2. Sew the pig up.

  3. Truss the legs of the pig.

  4. Place the pig in a dripping pan.

  5. Bake the pig at 350°F (175°C).

  6. Baste the pig for the first hour with butter and hot water.

  7. Baste the pig with butter alone.

  8. Wrap the ears and tail in buttered paper if they brown too quickly.

  9. Bake the pig for 2 to 2.5 hours, basting and seasoning as needed.

  10. Remove the stitches from the pig.

  11. Keep the pig warm.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Place the dripping pan over heat for gravy.

  2. Stir in flour and brown the mixture.

  3. Add equal parts boiling water and wine or three parts water and one part catsup.

  4. Boil the gravy.

  5. Season the gravy.

  6. Serve the gravy with the baked pig.

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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

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

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

  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

Bread
Soaked and squeezed bread absorbs juices and gives the stuffing body and moisture.
Liver, heart, and lights of the pig
Minced offal forms the rich, savory base of the stuffing.
Onion
Slowly fried onion adds sweetness and aroma to the stuffing.
Butter
Fat that bastes the pig, promoting browning and a moist surface.
Flour
Browned into the drippings, it thickens the gravy.

The step that matters

Wrap the ears and tail in buttered paper if they brown too quickly. Thin extremities brown and dry faster than the thick body, so shielding them keeps them from scorching while the rest of the pig finishes cooking.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against liver, butter, bread, pepper, sage, marjoram, 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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