Name: Chine of Pork
Ingredients: ½ pint pork stuffing; ½ pint apple sauce; 2 teaspoons finely chopped sage; 1 or 2 eggs; 3 cups bread crumbs; coarse sea salt; pepper; 2 or 3 allspice berries

Why it works: Sage and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 331 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Chine of Pork

Ingredients

Directions

Salt the chine for 60-70 hours before cooking.
Score the skin deeply without cutting into the meat.
Stuff the chine with pork stuffing.
Roast gently over a clear fire for 20 minutes per pound.
For boiling, brine for 9-10 days, turning daily.
Cover with water in a saucepan and boil slowly, skimming well.
Serve garnished with small trimmed cauliflowers or greens.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together331 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).
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Apple + sagetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together755 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).
Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,527 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, sauce, sage, egg, bread, pepper, allspice):

Lemonfits better
Limefits better
Figfits about as well
Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, sauce, sage, egg, bread, pepper, allspice. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.