Name: Roast Pio
Ingredients: light bread; milk; sage; onion; pepper; coarse sea salt; 1 egg; butter

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 ↓

Roast Pio

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the light bread in milk.
Boil sage and onion in plenty of water, then strain and chop finely.
Press the milk from the bread and mix it with the chopped sage, onion, pepper, and salt.
Add the yolk of an egg to the bread mixture to bind it.
Stuff the mixture inside the pig, rub the outside with milk and butter, and cover it.
Roast the pig until beautifully brown.
Before removing from the spit, cut off the head and down the back to avoid breaking the skin.
Remove the spit, cut off the ears, crack the skull, and take out the brains.
In a stewpan, combine the brains with the inside stuffing and a little brown sauce.
Serve the pig with the back facing up, sauce in the middle, and ears at each end.

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 + 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).
Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 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

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Potatofits better
Asparagusfits better
Onionthe original

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