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Roast Pig

A whole pig roasted with a bread and herb stuffing, then basted and served with a liver and heart gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pig

  1. Clean the pig well, leaving the head and feet on.

  2. Soften stale bread with water.

  3. Mix eggs, butter, sugar, thyme, onion, pepper, and salt in a frying pan with lard until browned.

  4. Stuff the pig with the mixture.

  5. Sew up the opening.

  6. Truss the pig with the front legs bent backward and the back legs forward.

Roast and baste

  1. Brush the pig with butter or salad oil.

  2. Baste frequently.

  3. Cook until thoroughly done.

Make the gravy

  1. After removing the pig, add a little water to the pan.

  2. Thicken with flour.

  3. Mix in the chopped liver and heart.

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. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

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

  2. Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Pig
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole so the meat becomes tender and fully done.
Stale bread
Absorbs moisture and flavour from the stuffing, giving it a soft, tender body.
Eggs
Bind the stuffing together so it holds its shape when cooked.
Flour
Thickens the pan liquids into a smooth gravy.
Lard
Adds fat to the stuffing, carrying flavour and aiding browning.

The step that matters

Cook until thoroughly done. A whole pig is thick and dense, so the centre can stay undercooked while the outside browns. Cooking it fully, and checking the thickest parts, makes it safe to eat.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, butter, sugar, thyme, pepper, 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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