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Roast Pig

A whole pig stuffed with bread crumb mixture, roasted in a pan with water and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Roast Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the stuffing

  1. Mix bread crumbs, onion, sage, melted butter, pepper, and salt in a bowl.

  2. Moisten the mixture with warm water or milk, then beat in the eggs.

Prepare the pig

  1. Stuff the pig with the mixture.

  2. Sew the pig shut.

  3. Bind the fore feet backward and hind feet forward.

  4. Skewer the legs into position.

  5. Dry the pig.

  6. Dredge the pig with flour.

Roast

  1. Place the pig in a roasting pan with a little salted hot water.

  2. Baste with butter and water three times as it roasts.

  3. Rub the pig with a cloth dipped in melted butter every five minutes after it begins to steam.

  4. Roast for about 1 hour and 45 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the fire.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the stuffing together so it holds its shape when cooked.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the moisture and butter to form a soft, cohesive stuffing.
Butter
Adds richness and helps the skin brown as it is basted and rubbed.
Onion
Adds savory flavor to the stuffing as it cooks inside the pig.

The step that matters

Rubbing and basting with butter during roasting. Fat carries heat to the skin and promotes even browning, while regular basting keeps the surface from drying out. Timing it from when steam appears helps the skin brown evenly rather than scorching or staying pale.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

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