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A Leg of Pork a LA Boisseau

A roasted leg of pork, cured and basted with butter, coated in breadcrumbs, served with gravy and apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

A Leg of Pork a LA Boisseau

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pork

  1. Soak the leg of pork in salt for 4 days.

  2. Boil the pork in water for a few minutes.

  3. Remove the pork from the water and peel off the rind.

Roast

  1. Place the pork on a spit over the fire and baste it well with butter.

  2. Sprinkle bread crumbs all over the pork, adding more until well coated.

  3. Roast the pork until it is a nice brown color.

Serve

  1. Once done, place the pork on a serving dish and pour gravy underneath.

  2. Serve with apple sauce on the side.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  3. Pork + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Bread + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 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

Leg of pork
Forms the main joint of meat; salt curing firms its texture and seasons it throughout.
Butter
Basting fat that carries flavor and promotes browning on the outside of the meat.
Bread crumbs
Form a coating that crisps and browns in the heat, adding texture to the surface.

The step that matters

Roast until a nice brown color. Browning depends on surface heat and the coating drying out. Too little heat leaves the crust pale and soft, while too much can scorch the crumbs before the centre is cooked through.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Applethe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Figfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter, bread, sauce. 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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