Skip to main content
Main

Pork, Belly Rolled and Boiled

A boiled pork belly rolled with pickled gherkins, spices, and herbs, cured with saltpetre and common salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Pork, Belly Rolled and Boiled

Ingredients

Directions

Cure the pork

  1. Mix powdered saltpetre with common salt and sprinkle over the pork. Let sit 3 days.

  2. Wash pork in cold water and dry with a cloth.

Roll and season

  1. Lay pork skin side down, remove bones, cover inside with sliced pickled gherkins, sprinkle powdered mace and pepper.

  2. Roll meat tightly and bind securely with tape.

Boil and cool

  1. Place rolled meat in saucepan with onions, bay leaves, parsley, and thyme.

  2. Slowly bring liquid to a boil, skim, then reduce to simmer until cooked, about 1 hour per pound.

  3. Once cooked, place meat between two dishes and weigh down until completely cool. Do not remove bandages until ready to serve.

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 + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Clove + thymetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Belly of pork
Provides the fatty, tender meat that the rolled joint is built around.
Powdered saltpetre
Cures the meat, helping it hold a pink colour and firm texture during the three-day rest.
Common salt
Draws out moisture and seasons the pork during curing.
Pickled gherkins
Adds sharp acidity that cuts through the rich pork fat.

The step that matters

Rolling and tying the pork tightly. A loose roll can open or unravel during simmering and cooling, leaving gaps in the slices. Firm, even binding keeps the joint compact so it cooks evenly and slices neatly.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper, onion, clove, parsley, thyme):

  1. Marjoramfits better
  2. Allspicefits better
  3. Winter savoryfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, onion, clove, parsley, thyme. 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.

You might also like

Pork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes