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Pork Roasted

Roasted pork seasoned with pepper, coarse sea salt, and sage, served with apple sauce and optional bread crumb dressing.

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

Pork Roasted

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare and roast

  1. Season the pork with pepper, coarse sea salt, and sage.

  2. Add ½ cup of boiling water to the roasting pan.

  3. Baste the pork often while roasting.

  4. Roast for 25 minutes per pound in a moderate oven (350°F / 175°C).

Serve

  1. Serve with apple sauce and optional bread crumb dressing.

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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Sage + appletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

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

  4. Sage + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pork (in the method)
Is the main cut being roasted, cooked through in the oven to become tender and juicy.
Apple sauce
Adds sweetness and acidity that balances the rich, savory roasted meat.

The step that matters

Basting the pork often while roasting. Basting spreads moisture over the surface as it cooks, helping keep the meat from drying out and encouraging even browning. Opening the oven often lets heat escape, so basting should be done quickly.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Red currantfits about as well
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, sage, sauce, bread. 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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