Why it works: Pork and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,121 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Roast Pork
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the pork
Take a nice middle piece of young pork and separate the joints.
Crack the bones across the middle without breaking the skin.
Score the pork parallel with the ribs and wash it.
Place the pork on a spit with a little water in the bottom of the roaster.
Rub the pork with salt, sugar, and Cayenne pepper.
Do not flour or baste the pork while cooking.
Make the gravy
Pour the gravy into a pan, skim off some fat, and stir in a little flour mixed with cold water.
Add some water and let it boil once before serving in a gravy tureen.
Adjust seasoning with more pepper or salt if needed.
Serve
Serve with apple sauce.
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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Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together22,121 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Sugar + peppertop 32% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together19,401 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Pork + sugartop 37% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,579 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Sugar and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,401 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Young pork
- Provides the main meat, whose fat and skin become crisp and flavourful as it roasts.
- Coarse sea salt
- Seasons the meat and helps draw out moisture to form a flavourful crust on the skin.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness and helps the surface brown during roasting.
- Cayenne pepper
- Adds a gentle heat that seasons the surface of the pork.
The step that matters
Do not flour or baste the pork while cooking. Opening the roaster to baste lets heat escape and slows crisping, and flour would form a pasty layer instead of a crisp skin.
“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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