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To Roast a Sucking Pig

A roasted suckling pig stuffed with sage, bread crumbs, salt, and pepper, then baked over a brisk fire.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

To Roast a Sucking Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Scald the pig if not already done.

  2. Stuff the belly with sage, bread crumbs, salt, and pepper, then sew it up.

  3. Skewer the legs back to ensure crispiness.

Roast and finish

  1. Roast over a brisk fire until thoroughly dry.

  2. Rub the pig with butter using a dry cloth.

  3. Dredge flour over the pig and do not touch it again until serving.

Carve and serve

  1. Carefully scrape off the flour with a blunt knife before serving.

  2. Remove the head while at the fire, take out the brains, and mix them with the gravy.

  3. Cut the pig down the back and belly, place it in a dish, and garnish with the ears and jaws.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sage + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Sucking pig
The main meat, whose skin crisps and fat renders during roasting.
Bread crumbs
Soak up juices inside the belly, adding bulk and a moist, soft stuffing.
Butter
Adds fat that helps the skin brown and turn golden and crisp.
Flour
Dries the surface and helps form a crisp, browned crust.
Sage
Adds a savoury, herbal aroma to the stuffing.

The step that matters

Roast until thoroughly dry. Surface moisture steams the skin instead of letting it blister and crisp, so the pig must be fully dried before the skin can brown properly.

Swap the sage

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

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Sagethe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, butter, 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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