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Pork, Loin Of, Roast

Roast pork loin served with brown gravy and apple or Robert sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Apple and sage work together. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 755 recipes. Both carry 2-hexenal, which smells green, leafy. The science ↓

Pork, Loin Of, Roast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Score the skin of the pork loin at ¼ inch intervals.

  2. Brush the skin with salad oil.

Roast

  1. Roast the pork loin in a 400°F (200°C) oven, keeping it at a distance from the heat to prevent burning the crackling.

  2. Baste the pork liberally while roasting.

Serve

  1. Once cooked, serve on a hot dish with brown gravy and apple sauce or Robert sauce.

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. Apple + sagetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

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

  2. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Sage + oniontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,628 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pork + appletop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,581 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

What each ingredient does

Pork loin
Forms the main body of the dish, and its fat renders during roasting to keep the meat moist.
Salad oil
Helps the scored skin brown and crisp in the oven.
Brown gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor to the sliced meat at serving.

The step that matters

Keeping the loin away from the heat. Skin placed too close to the heat source can scorch before the fat beneath it renders and the meat cooks through. Keeping a distance lets the heat cook the pork evenly while the skin crisps into crackling.

Swap the sage

The recipe marks sage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, apple, onion):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Gingerfits about as well
  3. Clovefits about as well
  4. Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, apple, onion. 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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