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Roast Pig

A whole pig roasted with onion, salt, butter, and optional wine, served with gravy and garnishes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Roast Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare a dressing for fowls by adding the chopped onion, and set it aside.

  2. Wash the pig thoroughly inside and out, then rinse the inside with water mixed with baking soda.

  3. Wipe the pig dry with a fresh towel, salt the inside, and stuff it with the dressing.

  4. Sew the pig up and place it in a kneeling position in a dripping pan, tying the legs properly.

Roast

  1. Pour a little hot salted water into the pan and baste the pig with butter and water as it warms.

  2. When the pig begins to smoke, rub it often with a rag dipped in melted butter to keep the skin crisp.

  3. Roast the pig for 2 to 3 hours, basting regularly.

Make the gravy and serve

  1. To make the gravy, skim off most of the grease, stir in the flour, and add water to achieve the right consistency.

  2. Season the gravy with pepper and let it boil once, then strain it and add wine if desired.

  3. Serve the pig on a large hot platter, garnished with parsley or celery tops, and decorate with a green wreath and a sprig of celery.

  4. When carving, cut off the head first, then split down the back, and remove the hams, shoulders, and ribs.

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. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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

Young pig
Is the main meat, whose skin is crisped by repeated basting with fat.
Butter
Adds fat that promotes browning and crisping of the skin during roasting.
Baking soda
Raises the pH of the rinse water, which can help tenderize and brown the surface.
Flour
Thickens the skimmed pan drippings into a smooth gravy.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma to the finished gravy.

The step that matters

Keeping the skin crisp while roasting. The skin dries and browns only when fat is repeatedly applied and surface moisture evaporates. Letting it dry out or neglecting basting leaves it tough, while excess moisture steams it instead of crisping it.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper, wine, parsley, celery):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, wine, parsley, celery. 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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