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To Roast a Sucking Pig

A whole pig roasted with sage, stale bread, salt, pepper, butter, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sage and pepper 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 ↓

To Roast a Sucking Pig

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pig

  1. Scald the pig if not already done.

  2. Stuff the belly with sage, stale bread, salt, and pepper, then sew it up.

  3. Skewer the legs back to ensure crispiness.

Roast

  1. Place the pig by a brisk fire until thoroughly dry.

  2. Rub the pig all over with butter using a dry cloth.

  3. Dredge flour over the pig and do not touch it again until serving.

  4. Rub the pig with a buttered cloth and remove the head while cooking.

Serve

  1. Carefully scrape off the flour with a blunt knife before serving.

  2. Take out the brains and mix them with the gravy from the pig.

  3. Cut the pig down the back and belly, then place it in a dish.

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. Sage + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Sage + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,115 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Sage + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,778 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Sucking pig
Forms the main body of the dish, cooked whole until its skin turns crisp.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture to the skin and helps it brown as it roasts.
Flour
Dredged over the pig to form a crust that becomes crisp during roasting.
Stale white bread
Absorbs juices inside the belly, keeping the stuffing moist and flavorful.
Sage
Contributes aromatic flavor to the stuffing inside the belly.

The step that matters

Place the pig by a brisk fire until thoroughly dry. Surface moisture must evaporate before fat and browning can crisp the skin; damp skin steams and turns leathery instead of crisp.

Swap the sage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, pepper, butter, flour):

  1. Parsleyfits about as well
  2. Nutmegfits about as well
  3. Sagethe original
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, pepper, butter, 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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