Name: A Sucking Pig
Ingredients: ½ pint grated bread; 30-40 leaves sage, chopped fine; pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; nutmeg, to taste; fresh butter or salad oil, for rubbing; flour, for dredging; ½ pint good beef or veal gravy; dried currants, optional

Why it works: Sage and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 642 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

A Sucking Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Season the grated bread with chopped sage, pepper, salt, and nutmeg, and sew it into the pig's belly.
Prepare a clear, brisk fire for roasting.
Rub the pig all over with butter or oil, then dredge it with flour.
Baste the pig with butter or oil while roasting for 1.5 to 2 hours.
When done, remove any flour with a clean cloth.
Place a hot dish ready, cut off the head, and split the pig open.
Remove the thread from the belly and cut down the middle of the back bone.
Beat the brains, pudding, and gravy with beef or veal gravy, adding some to the serving dish and the rest to a sauce tureen.
If desired, add dried currants to the sauce.
Arrange the pig back to back on the dish with a half head at each end and an ear on each side.

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.

Sage + nutmegtop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together642 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together13,015 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Nutmeg + flourtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,623 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

Swap the currant

The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, sage, pepper, nutmeg, butter, flour, beef):

Lemonfits better
Limefits better
Figfits better
Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, sage, pepper, nutmeg, butter, flour, beef. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.