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Roast Leg of Pork

A roasted leg of pork seasoned with cayenne pepper, sage, salt, vinegar, and olive oil.

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

Roast Leg of Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rub the pork with vinegar, salt, cayenne pepper, and sage.

  2. Wrap the pork in a linen cloth dipped in vinegar and let it stand for 24 hours, wetting the cloth with vinegar constantly.

  3. Rub the pork with olive oil and flour.

Roast

  1. Roast the pork, allowing 25 minutes per pound.

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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Olive + sagetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,138 recipes

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

  3. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

  4. Pork + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,716 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  5. Pepper + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork leg
Provides the main meat that is seasoned, rested and roasted.
Vinegar
Acidity helps tenderize the surface of the meat during the long rest.
Salt
Seasons the meat and helps draw flavor into its surface.
Olive oil
Fat carries seasoning and helps the outer surface brown in the oven.
Flour (in the method)
Coats the surface, helping it brown and form a crisp crust.

The step that matters

Keeping the cloth wet during the 24-hour rest. The vinegar-dipped cloth must stay damp so the surface does not dry out. Acidity from the vinegar works on the meat while the cloth keeps moisture at the surface during the long rest.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper, olive, vinegar):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Rosemaryfits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, olive, vinegar. 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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