Skip to main content
Main

To Roast a Sucking Pig

A method for roasting a prepared pig with bread crumb stuffing, sage, butter, and seasoning, served with veal gravy and Madeira.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Sage and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 887 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

To Roast a Sucking Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pig

  1. Dry the pig thoroughly after scalding.

  2. Stuff the pig with bread crumbs, sage, butter, salt, and pepper or cayenne.

  3. Sew the pig up with strong cotton and truss it like a hare.

Roast

  1. Roast the pig over a strong, clear fire at a moderate distance to avoid scorching.

  2. Once warm, rub the pig with butter and cover it with muslin or thin cloth, repeating while roasting.

  3. Place basins under the pig to catch the dripping gravy.

  4. When the pig is light amber brown and steaming, dry it with a clean cloth and rub with cold butter.

  5. Hang a pig iron or large flat iron in the center of the grate to ensure even cooking.

Serve

  1. When ready, place the pig in a hot dish, remove the spit, and open the head.

  2. Split the body in two, chop the stuffing and brains, and mix with veal gravy, Madeira, and the drippings.

  3. Pour some gravy under the meat and serve the rest hot in a tureen, seasoning with mace, cayenne, and lemon juice.

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 + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  4. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  5. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Bread crumbs
Absorb the drippings and fat inside, giving the stuffing a moist, soft body.
Butter
Adds fat that bastes the skin, promoting browning and a rich flavor.
Veal gravy
Supplies moisture and savory body to the chopped stuffing and serving sauce.
Madeira or sherry
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the gravy.
Sage
Contributes a herbal aroma that pairs with the rich pork.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich gravy at the end.

The step that matters

Keep the fire moderate and turn the pig with basting. A strong fire at too close a distance scorches the skin before the thick interior cooks through. Keeping the distance moderate, covering with cloth and rubbing with butter lets heat penetrate gently and gives an even amber browning.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sage, butter, pepper, veal, sherry, lemon):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sage, butter, pepper, veal, sherry, lemon. 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.

More roast pig recipes

Stuffed 3 See all 115 →

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesLemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipesBread OmeletteBread Omelette60 recipes