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Roast Pig

A whole pig stuffed with a bread crumb and herb dressing, then roasted for four hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 507 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Roast Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the dressing

  1. Make a dressing by mixing bread crumbs, salt, pepper, sage, marjoram, chopped onion, butter, eggs, and salt pork.

  2. Fry the mixture slightly.

  3. Let the mixture cool.

Stuff and roast

  1. Wash the pig in salt and water.

  2. Stuff the pig with the dressing.

  3. Sew the pig up.

  4. Roast the pig for four hours.

  5. Baste the pig often.

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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together507 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  2. Pepper + marjoramtop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,609 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Pepper + sagetop 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. Onion + porktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Bind the dressing together so it holds its shape when stuffed.
Bread crumbs
Provide the bulk of the dressing and absorb the butter and fat for moisture.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that renders into the dressing during roasting.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the dressing.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the dressing once softened by frying.

The step that matters

Baste the pig often. Basting during a long roast recirculates melted fat and juices over the surface, keeping the skin moist and promoting even browning while the interior cooks through.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pepper, sage, marjoram, butter, egg, pork):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, sage, marjoram, butter, egg, pork. 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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