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A Very Nice Entree From Cold Roast Pig

A stew of cold roast pig, mushrooms, wine, and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

A Very Nice Entree From Cold Roast Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the flesh and skin from the bones of the cold roast pig and cut into pieces.

  2. Melt the butter in a pan.

  3. Add the sliced mushrooms and cook for 3-4 minutes.

  4. Stir in the flour and continue to cook gently, avoiding burning.

Make the stew

  1. Add the parsley, mace, salt, Cayenne pepper, and water.

  2. Let it boil gently until reduced by one third.

  3. Remove the parsley and mace.

  4. Add the meat and wine and bring to a simmer.

  5. Stir in the beaten egg yolks and lemon juice.

  6. Serve hot.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  3. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

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

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the stew and enrich its texture when stirred in at the end.
Butter
Provides fat for cooking the mushrooms and carries flavour through the stew.
Flour
Thickens the liquid with the butter as a roux, giving the stew body.
Wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the stew liquid.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the stew and balances the rich yolks.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated but can curdle if they get too hot or boil. Add them off the heat or at a low simmer while stirring constantly to keep the sauce smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, egg, butter, mushroom, flour, parsley, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, egg, butter, mushroom, flour, parsley, pepper. 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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