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Roast Pig

A whole pig roasted with salt, bread forcemeat, butter, and spices, served with apple or lemon and apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Roast Pig

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the pig

  1. Select a pig and clean, wash, and dry it thoroughly.

  2. Rub the inside of the pig with coarse sea salt.

  3. Fill the pig with bread forcemeat.

  4. Sew up the opening of the pig.

  5. Press the fore feet forward. Press the hind feet backward. Skewer the feet in position.

  6. Place the pig in a pan.

Season and bake

  1. Rub the entire body of the pig with melted butter.

  2. Dredge the pig with salt and a little white pepper.

  3. Cover the ears and tail of the pig with buttered paper to prevent crisping.

  4. Place a piece of wood in the pig's mouth to keep it open.

  5. Bake the pig in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for three and a half hours, basting frequently with melted butter.

  6. About half an hour before it is done, remove the buttered paper to allow the ears and tail to brown.

Serve

  1. When cooked, arrange the pig on a platter.

  2. Place an apple or lemon in the pig's mouth.

  3. Serve the pig 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Bread + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

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

  3. Butter + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,706 recipes

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

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Bread + saucetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,934 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pig
Forms the whole roast, and its skin and meat cook together over the long bake.
Bread forcemeat
Fills the cavity, adding moisture and flavour to the meat as it cooks.
Melted butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and keeps the skin from drying during basting.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat and draws out moisture that helps flavour penetrate.

The step that matters

Bake the pig and baste frequently. A long, moderate bake cooks a large pig through slowly. Frequent basting with butter keeps the surface moist and helps it brown evenly rather than drying out.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, butter, apple, sauce. 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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