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Roast Pig

A whole pig stuffed with mashed potatoes and seasonings, roasted and served with gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 17 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pig

  1. Soak the pig in water with a little baking soda for 1 hour, then rinse with salt water.

  2. Clean and wipe the pig inside and out.

  3. Fill the pig with mashed potatoes mixed with butter, chopped onion, sage, salt, and pepper.

  4. Sew up the pig and skewer it firmly.

  5. Bend the forefeet backward and the hind feet forward.

Roast and garnish

  1. Baste with butter, dredge with flour, and place in a dripping pan with a little water.

  2. When it begins to brown, rub a buttered cloth over it to make it crisp.

  3. Roast for about 2 to 3 hours, depending on size.

  4. Once baked, place in a cold area for 5 minutes.

  5. Garnish with parsley, sliced lemon, and place an apple in the mouth.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. Drain off the fat from the pan, leaving a little for gravy.

  2. Rub flour into the remaining drippings until lightly browned, then add boiling water and lemon juice.

  3. Add wine, salt, and pepper, then strain into a gravy boat.

  4. Serve with apple sauce.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  3. Sage + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig
Is the main cut of meat, cooked whole so it stays moist and tender.
Mashed potatoes
Fill the cavity, absorbing juices and keeping the inside moist as the pig roasts.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and helps the skin brown and crisp.
Flour
Dredged on the skin and used in the gravy to thicken and add color.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the gravy.

The step that matters

Rub the skin with a buttered cloth when it begins to brown. Fat on the surface helps the skin blister and crisp as it browns. Adding it too early or skipping it can leave the skin pale or tough, so watch the color closely.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, sage, pepper, flour, parsley, lemon):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, sage, pepper, flour, parsley, lemon. 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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