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Roast Little Pig

A whole young pig is cleaned, stuffed with bread crumbs and herbs, roasted, and served with a lemon‑flavored gravy.

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

Roast Little Pig

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the pig

  1. Immerse the pig in cold water immediately after killing it.

  2. After a few moments, immerse it in boiling water for a few minutes.

  3. Remove the pig and quickly pull off the hair.

  4. Make a slit down the underside and remove the entrails.

  5. Clean the nostrils and ears, then wash the pig in cold water and dry thoroughly.

  6. Remove the feet at the first joint, leaving enough skin to fold over.

Stuff and roast

  1. Prepare the stuffing by mixing bread crumbs, sage, pepper, salt, and butter.

  2. Stuff the pig with the mixture and sew up the slit neatly.

  3. Rub the pig with a little butter or salad oil.

  4. Place it in a baking pan and bake at 400°F (200°C), basting often with melted butter.

  5. Turn the pig to ensure even browning.

Serve and make the gravy

  1. Once done, place the pig on its side on a hot platter or stand it on all fours if the feet were removed.

  2. Insert a small ear of corn in its mouth for presentation.

  3. Pour the drippings from the pan into a pot, add hot water, season with pepper and salt, thicken with browned flour, and add lemon juice.

  4. Serve the gravy in a gravy boat.

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. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Young pig
Forms the main meat, which becomes tender and juicy during slow roasting.
Bread crumbs
Absorb the butter and juices in the stuffing, keeping it moist rather than dry.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning on the skin and moistens the meat while basting.
Browned flour (in the method)
Thickens the pan drippings into a gravy that clings to the meat.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich drippings gravy.

The step that matters

Basting and turning the pig during roasting. Regular basting with melted butter and turning the pig keep the skin from drying and burning while the fat renders, giving even browning across the whole carcass.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits about as well
  3. Thymefits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

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

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