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To Roast Pork

A pork leg roasted with a bread crumb, sage, onion, pepper, and salt dressing.

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 Pork

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Wash the leg of pork thoroughly.

  2. Cut the skin into squares.

Make and add the dressing

  1. Make a dressing with bread crumbs, sage, chopped onions, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  2. Moisten the dressing with the egg yolk.

  3. Place the dressing under the skin of the knuckle.

  4. Sprinkle a little powdered sage into the cuts in the rind.

Roast

  1. Roast for about three hours at 350°F (175°C).

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. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork leg
Provides the main body of meat, which becomes tender and juicy during long roasting.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the dressing body, keeping it moist inside the meat.
Egg yolk
Binds the bread crumbs and sage into a cohesive dressing that holds together while roasting.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma that mellow and deepen during roasting.
Sage
Adds a savory, aromatic herb flavor that carries through the pork.

The step that matters

Cut the skin into squares. Scoring the rind lets fat render and the skin crisp, and the cuts also give the seasoning a path into the meat. Cuts that are too shallow or uneven can leave the skin tough and uneven.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, bread, sage, pepper, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, bread, sage, pepper, egg. 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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