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Roast Pig

A whole pig stuffed with potato mixture, roasted until tender, served with apple sauce or fried apples.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Roast Pig

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Wash the pig well and stuff it with the potato stuffing.

  2. To make the stuffing, mix mashed potatoes, softened butter, chopped onion, pepper, salt, and sage.

  3. Sew the pig after stuffing it.

  4. Skewer the forelegs forward and the hind legs backward.

  5. Rub the pig with softened butter and sprinkle with flour, salt, and pepper.

Roast

  1. Place the pig in a 400°F (200°C) oven with a little water in the pan.

  2. Baste often with melted butter to soften the skin.

  3. Bake for about 3 hours or until tender when tested with a fork.

Serve

  1. Arrange the pig on a platter in a bed of parsley, with a slice of lemon in its mouth.

  2. Serve with apple sauce or fried apples.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Sage + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,445 recipes

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

  3. Sage + lemontop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

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

  5. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Pig
Is the main cut of meat; long roasting turns its tough connective tissue tender.
Mashed potatoes
Form the stuffing, adding moisture and soft body that keeps the inside of the pig moist.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and basting with melted butter helps the skin brown and soften.
Sage
Adds the herbal aroma that flavors the potato stuffing.
Flour
Sprinkled on the skin, it helps the surface brown and crisp during roasting.

The step that matters

Bake for about 3 hours until tender. A whole pig is dense, so it needs long, low-to-moderate heat for collagen to break down into gelatin. Testing with a fork in the thickest parts shows whether the meat is truly tender rather than just browned outside.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (potato, butter, pepper, sage, flour, parsley, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, pepper, sage, flour, parsley, lemon. 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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