Why it works: Marjoram and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 125 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓
Roast Pork
Ingredients
Directions
The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).
Wash the leg of pork and dry it with a cloth.
Mix the crushed crackers, cream, eggs, salt, marjoram, and savory.
Cook the mixture for 10 minutes.
Stuff the mixture into the incision made in the thick part of the leg.
Roast
Place the pork in the oven.
Baste the pork often with drippings and dust the surface with flour.
Roast for 3.5 hours or until fully cooked.
Make the gravy and serve
Skim the fat from the gravy.
Add a little flour to the gravy.
Boil the gravy for a few minutes.
Serve with apple sauce or currant jelly, and sides like mashed potatoes, squash, turnips, and pickles.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Marjoram + summer savorytop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together125 recipes
Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
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Summer savory + flourtop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together263 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
-
Marjoram + flourtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,265 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Pork + summer savorytop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together239 recipes
Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).
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Pork + marjoramtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together883 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Leg of pork
- Is the main cut of meat that is roasted and carved for serving.
- Eggs
- Bind the cracker stuffing so it holds together in the meat.
- Crushed crackers
- Form the bulk of the stuffing and absorb the cream and egg mixture.
- Cream
- Adds moisture and richness to the stuffing, keeping it tender.
- Flour
- Dusted on the surface and added to the gravy to help it thicken and brown.
The step that matters
Stuff the mixture into the incision made in the thick part of the leg.. The stuffing is loose and moist, so it must be packed into the deepest part of the thick meat. Cooking the mixture first sets the eggs and helps the filling hold together during roasting.
Swap the marjoram
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, cream, egg, summer savory, flour):
- Nutmegfits better
- Marjoramthe original
- Thymefits about as well
- Sagefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against pork, cream, egg, summer savory, flour. 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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