Name: Roast Pig
Ingredients: 1 pig; bread crumbs; sage; coarse sea salt; black pepper; flour; melted butter; water; green parsley or celery tops for garnish

Why it works: Sage and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,445 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Pig

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Scald and clean the pig carefully.
Make a dressing of bread crumbs, sage, coarse sea salt, and black pepper; stuff the pig and sew it up.
Fasten the legs back so the under part will crisp nicely.
Dredge the pig with flour and place it in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).
Baste frequently with melted butter.
When done, pour off the fat from the top of the drippings, add water to the remainder, and thicken for gravy.
Serve the gravy in a dish and stand the pig up on a platter, garnished with green parsley or celery tops.

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.

Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,445 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 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

Swap the sage

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

Marjoramfits about as well
Thymefits about as well
Sagethe original
Capersfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, flour, butter, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.