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To Roast Spare Rib

A roast spare rib seasoned with sage, salt, pepper, flour, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper 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 ↓

To Roast Spare Rib

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the spare-rib with powdered sage, coarse sea salt, and black pepper.

Roast

  1. Roast the spare-rib for 1 hour if thin, or 2 to 3 hours if large and thick, with the thick end facing the fire.

  2. Dust the rib with flour when you place it down and baste with a little butter.

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

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sage + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,312 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Spare-rib
Main cut of meat that becomes tender and juicy during slow roasting.
Flour
Dusted on the surface to help form a light crust that browns during roasting.
Butter
Basted over the meat to add richness and promote browning on the surface.

The step that matters

Roasting time and position. Thickness decides the roasting time, and a thick rib needs longer at gentle heat so its centre cooks through. Placing the thick end toward the fire gives it more heat, so the thin end is less likely to overcook and dry out.

Swap the sage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, flour, butter. 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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