Skip to main content
Main

To Boil PicJcled Pork

A boiled dish of pickled pork served with parsley, butter, peas, greens, carrots, and parsnips.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and parsnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,097 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

To Boil PicJcled Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Wash and scrape the pickled pork.

  2. Place it in boiling water with the skin-side up.

  3. Boil for about 1 hour for a thin piece or up to 3 hours for a leg.

  4. Skim the pot regularly to remove impurities.

Serve

  1. Serve with parsley and butter poured over it, alongside peas, greens, carrots, or parsnips.

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. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Parsley + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Peas + carrottop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,994 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Peas + parsniptop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

What each ingredient does

Pickled pork
Provides the main meat and flavour, becoming tender as it simmers slowly in water.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth fat coating that softens the savoury flavour of the meat.
Peas
Adds natural sweetness and a tender texture alongside the rich pork.
Carrots
Adds gentle sweetness and soft texture that balances the salty pork.
Parsnips
Adds earthy sweetness and a soft, starchy texture that complements the pork.

The step that matters

Skimming the pot. Impurities and foam rise to the surface during boiling and can cloud the broth and taint the flavour if left in, so regular skimming keeps the liquid clean.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, parsley, butter, carrot, parsnip):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, parsley, butter, carrot, parsnip. 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

Green PeasGreen Peas229 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesPork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipes