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To Roast a Neck of Pork, Rolled

A pork neck rolled with sage, bread, salt, pepper, and egg yolk, then roasted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Neck of Pork, Rolled

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat oven to 300°F (150°C).

  2. Make a forcemeat by mixing the sage, crumbed bread, salt, pepper, and egg yolk.

  3. Spread the forcemeat over the boned neck of pork.

  4. Roll the meat tightly and secure it with kitchen twine.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast slowly, allowing 20 minutes per pound of meat.

  2. Serve with brown gravy.

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. Pork + sagetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,527 recipes

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

  3. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  4. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Binds the forcemeat so the bread and sage hold together around the pork.
Crumbed bread
Absorbs moisture and adds body to the forcemeat stuffing.
Sage
Adds aromatic flavour that penetrates the pork during slow roasting.

The step that matters

Roll the meat tightly and secure it with kitchen twine. A loosely rolled joint can open up and let the forcemeat fall out during roasting. Tight rolling keeps the stuffing packed and the cut an even shape so it cooks uniformly.

Swap the sage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, bread, pepper, egg. 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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