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To Roast a Leg of Pork

A roasted leg of pork seasoned with coarse sea salt and black pepper, cooked until tender with a crispy skin.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Pork and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 22,121 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Roast a Leg of Pork

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Rub the leg of pork with coarse sea salt and black pepper.

  3. Place the pork in a roasting pan and add water to the bottom.

Roast and rest

  1. Roast for several hours, basting occasionally, until the meat is tender and the skin is crispy.

  2. Let it rest before carving.

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 + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pork leg
Forms the main body of the dish, becoming tender and juicy as it cooks slowly.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the meat and helps draw moisture to the surface for a crisper skin.
Black pepper
Adds aromatic heat that complements the seasoned surface of the pork.

The step that matters

Roast for several hours, basting occasionally. Long, gentle roasting breaks down connective tissue so the meat becomes tender, while basting keeps the surface moist. Too high a heat can dry the meat before the center is tender.

“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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