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Roast Pork, French Receipt

Roast pork seasoned with olive oil, salt, pepper, herbs, and onions, then roasted after marinating.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,779 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Roast Pork, French Receipt

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the pork, leaving only ½ inch of fat.

  2. Place the pork in a pan.

  3. Pour the olive oil over the pork.

  4. Sprinkle salt and pepper over the meat.

  5. Add the herbs and sliced onions.

  6. Let the pork soak for 24 hours.

  7. Remove the meat and score the fat for crackling.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast the pork before a hot fire.

  2. A 4 lb piece will take 2 hours; a 2 lb piece will take 1½ hours.

  3. Strain the oil the pork has been soaking in and baste the meat with it.

  4. Sprinkle salt over the pork ½ hour before it is done.

  5. Serve with tomato sauce or sauce piquante in a sauceboat.

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. Olive + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pork + olivetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,716 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pork
Forms the main body of the dish, and its fat renders and crisps into crackling during roasting.
Olive oil
Soaks into the meat during the long rest and, basted back over it, keeps the surface moist while roasting.
Onions
Sit with the pork during the soak, flavouring the oil that is later basted over the meat.
Herbs
Sit with the pork during the soak, infusing the oil with aroma that carries into the meat.

The step that matters

Score the fat for crackling. Scoring cuts through the fat layer so it can render and crisp evenly, while the lean meat stays protected below. Shallow, even cuts give the best crackling.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, olive, pepper. 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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