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Roast Pork

Roast pork prepared with salt, pepper, sage, flour, and boiled water, baked at 400°F.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Roast Pork

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 Pork

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Wash the rib roast well and rub the surface with plenty of coarse sea salt.

  2. Sprinkle lightly with pepper and sage.

  3. Dredge the roast with flour.

Roast

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for the first 20 minutes.

  2. Pour 1 pint of boiling water into the pan and reduce the heat.

  3. Allow 20 minutes of cooking time for each pound of meat, basting often.

  4. Ensure the roast is thoroughly cooked 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 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

Rib roast
Provides the main meat, whose fat and connective tissue keep the roast moist and flavourful.
Flour
Forms a dusted coating that helps the surface brown during roasting.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the surface of the meat and helps draw out moisture for a flavorful crust.

The step that matters

Ensure the roast is thoroughly cooked before serving. Pork needs to reach a safe internal temperature; the record gives only a time-per-pound estimate, so checking doneness with a thermometer is important because cooking time varies with roast size and oven behaviour.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pepper, flour):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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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