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Stuffed Leg of Pork

A pork leg stuffed with a seasoned mashed potato mixture, roasted and served with apple or cranberry sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and sage 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 ↓

Stuffed Leg of Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Make deep incisions in the meat parallel to the bone and trim the meat, leaving the skin longer.

  2. Boil the potatoes until done, then mash them with butter, cayenne pepper, salt, onion, and rubbed sage.

  3. Fill the incisions with the potato mixture, draw the skin down, and skewer it to keep the filling inside.

  4. Season the outside of the meat with salt, cayenne pepper, and rubbed sage.

Roast and make gravy

  1. Roast the meat slowly until done.

  2. Pour the gravy into a pan, skim off the fat, and add flour mixed with water; let it boil once.

Serve

  1. Serve with apple or cranberry sauce.

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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Sage + appletop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

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

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 meat, which becomes tender and juicy during slow roasting.
Mashed potatoes
Fills the incisions, adding moisture and body that keeps the meat from drying out.
Butter
Adds fat to the potato filling, contributing richness and a softer texture.
Onion
Adds savory flavor to the potato filling as it cooks in the mash.
Flour
Thickens the gravy as it is stirred into the boiling pan juices.

The step that matters

Roast the meat slowly until done. Slow roasting gives the thick pork leg time to cook through evenly and keeps the meat moist, while the potato filling heats through without drying out. Checking for doneness avoids undercooked meat near the bone.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Avocadofits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, potato, butter, pepper, onion, sage, 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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