Skip to main content
Main

Leg of Pork, Roasted

Roasted leg of pork served with brown gravy and apple sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pork and apple are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,581 recipes. Both carry 4-heptenal, which smells creamy, biscuit. The science ↓

Leg of Pork, Roasted

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Score the skin of the pork leg all around with a sharp knife.

Roast

  1. Place the pork at a distance from the fire.

  2. Turn the pork constantly and baste it well.

Serve

  1. Serve with brown gravy and apple 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. Pork + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  2. Pork + saucetop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,666 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Apple + saucetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together965 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Leg of pork
Main cut; slow roasting softens its fat and connective tissue, leaving the meat tender and juicy.

The step that matters

Turn the pork constantly and baste it well. Turning exposes every side to the heat so it browns evenly, and basting spreads juices and fat over the surface, which keeps it from drying out.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, sauce):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Applethe original
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Mangofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sauce. 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

Pork CakePork Cake107 recipesRoast PorkRoast Pork82 recipesApple SoupApple Soup33 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes