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Sucking-pig

A roasted suckling pig stuffed with butter, herbs, mushrooms, and onions, served with vinaigrette or remoulade and garnished with truffles and apple.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Sucking-pig

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C) if baking.

  2. Skewer the cleaned suckling pig and stuff it with butter, parsley, green onions, mushrooms, and onions.

Cook

  1. Place the pig on a spit over a good fire or in a baking pan with enough cold water to cover the bottom.

  2. Baste often with melted butter and then with drippings.

Garnish and serve

  1. When cooked, serve with a vinaigrette or remoulade sauce.

  2. Garnish with slices of truffles, mushrooms, and parsley around the pig.

  3. Insert skewers through slices of truffles and whole mushrooms, and plant them in the pig.

  4. Place a small red apple in the mouth of the pig after cooking.

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. Mushroom + truffletop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,900 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + appletop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,774 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  5. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

What each ingredient does

Suckling pig
Forms the main meat, cooking slowly to become tender and juicy.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and browns the skin when basted over the pig.
Mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and moisture to the stuffing.
White onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they cook inside the pig.

The step that matters

Basting the pig. Basting often with melted butter and then drippings keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly, so the skin becomes golden rather than dry or burnt.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, parsley, onion, mushroom, clove, pepper, truffle):

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, onion, mushroom, clove, pepper, truffle. 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.

More suckling pig recipes

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