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Roast Pig

A whole pig is seasoned, stuffed with bread and optional onion, roasted on a spit, and served with a gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage 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 ↓

Roast Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Rub the inside of the pig with salt, pepper, and sage if desired.

  2. Spread butter on one side of the bread slices.

  3. Sprinkle the buttered bread with salt, pepper, sage, and onion if using. Moisten the bread with hot water.

  4. Fill the pig's body with the stuffing. Sew or tie the pig closed.

Roast

  1. Place the pig on a spit.

  2. Put a pint of water, salt, and pepper in the dripping pan.

  3. Roast the pig at a distance from the fire. Baste the pig occasionally and move it closer as it cooks.

  4. Cook for about 15 minutes per pound, or until the eyes drop out.

  5. Rub the pig with a cloth dipped in butter until the skin is crisp.

Make the gravy

  1. Dredge flour into the gravy. Boil the gravy.

  2. Add finely chopped heart and liver before serving.

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. Pepper + sagetop 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. Wheat + breadtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together209 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Wheat + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,373 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Whole pig
Provides the large body mass that is roasted and carved for the dish.
Wheat bread
Soaked with hot water, it forms a moist, absorbent stuffing inside the pig.
Butter
Rubbed on the skin, it helps the skin brown and crisp as it roasts.
Flour
Dredged into the drippings, it thickens the gravy.

The step that matters

Rubbing the skin with butter until crisp. Fat on the skin helps it brown and crisp, but the skin can burn if the pig is too close to the fire. Basting and moving the pig closer gradually keeps the heat even.

Swap the sage

The recipe marks sage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, wheat, bread, butter, onion, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Garlicfits about as well
  3. Turmericfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, wheat, bread, butter, onion, 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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