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To Roast a Leg of Pork

A roasted leg of pork stuffed with onion, sage, breadcrumbs, and egg yolk, served with apple sauce and mashed potatoes.

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 ↓

To Roast a Leg of Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Score the skin of the leg of pork in narrow stripes, forming diamonds if desired.

  2. Rub powdered sage into the skin.

  3. Lift the skin at the knuckle and stuff it with minced onion, sage, bread crumbs, pepper, salt, and beaten egg yolk.

  4. Fasten the skin down with a buttered string.

  5. Make deep incisions in the meat and stuff them, pressing the filling in tightly.

Roast and baste

  1. Brush the skin with sweet oil to achieve a crisp, brown finish.

  2. Roast the leg of pork for 3 to 4 hours.

  3. Brush the roast with sweet oil and fresh butter regularly.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Skim the fat from the gravy.

  2. Thicken the gravy with a little flour.

  3. Serve the roast leg of pork with apple sauce, mashed potatoes, and mashed turnips.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of pork
Forms the main body of the roast, providing the meat that is cooked and served.
Egg yolk
Binds the stuffing so it holds together while the roast cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices in the stuffing, adding body and moisture to the filling.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it is stirred into the pan juices.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and helps the surface brown while basting.
Sweet oil
Helps the skin crisp and brown and keeps the surface from drying out.

The step that matters

Brush the skin with sweet oil. The skin must be dry and well oiled to crisp and brown; oiling the surface encourages browning in the oven, while moisture on the skin would steam it instead.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sage, bread, pepper, egg, butter, 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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