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Baked Fresh Pork

A roasted pork with carrots, turnip, onions, apples, served with boiled potatoes and brown gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Baked Fresh Pork

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 pork

  1. Scrape the pork skin with a dull knife and wash it thoroughly.

  2. Score the skin in little squares.

  3. If the skin is removed, trim excess fat.

  4. Cut out the backbone with a sharp knife.

Roast the pork

  1. In a dripping pan, place the sliced carrot, turnip, onion, whole cloves, peppercorns, and parsley or celery.

  2. Lay the pork on top of the vegetables and place the pan in a 350°F (175°C) oven to brown the meat.

  3. Once browned, season the pork with salt, pepper, and powdered sage.

  4. Cook for 15 minutes per pound of meat.

Prepare and bake the onions and apples

  1. An hour before the pork is done, peel the small white onions without breaking them apart.

  2. In a pan, combine the onions, sugar, butter, salt, and pepper.

  3. Place in the oven and shake occasionally for even browning.

  4. Wash and quarter the apples, removing the cores.

  5. Place them in a small pan with 1 tablespoon of butter and bake until tender but not broken.

  6. Keep the onions and apples hot until serving.

Serve

  1. When the pork is done, place it on a hot dish and arrange the apples and onions around it.

  2. Serve with boiled potatoes and brown gravy.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Parsley + sagetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  4. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh pork
Provides the main meat, which browns in the oven and becomes tender as it cooks.
Small white onions
Caramelize slightly with sugar and butter, adding sweetness and browning to the dish.
Tart apples
Their acidity balances the rich pork, and they hold their shape when baked until tender.
Sugar
Helps the onions brown in the oven and adds a touch of sweetness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, helping the onions and apples brown and taste savoury-sweet.

The step that matters

Baking the apples until tender but not broken. Apples held too long or at too high a heat collapse into mush. Cooking them gently, with a little butter, softens the flesh while the cut pieces keep their shape.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, carrot, turnip, clove, parsley, pepper, sage):

  1. Parsnipfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, carrot, turnip, clove, parsley, pepper, sage. 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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