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Stuffed Leg of Pork

A pork leg stuffed with a mixture of onions, apple, breadcrumbs, sage, butter, egg yolk, and seasoned, then baked.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Stuffed Leg of Pork

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 the stuffing

  1. Partly boil the leg of pork for about 1 hour, then remove the skin.

  2. If a strong onion flavor is not preferred, boil the minced onions before using.

  3. In a bowl, combine minced onions, chopped apple, bread crumbs, chopped sage, butter, salt, pepper, and egg yolk. Mix well.

Stuff and roast

  1. Make a long slit in the knuckle of the pork and stuff it with the mixture. Securely fasten the opening.

  2. Place the pork in a baking dish and bake at 400°F (200°C), basting continually.

  3. Mix 2 tablespoons of bread crumbs with 1 tablespoon of powdered sage, salt, and pepper to create a savoury powder.

  4. Half an hour before the pork is done, sprinkle the savoury powder over it and do not baste afterward.

  5. Bake or roast the pork for a total of 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with apple sauce and 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

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

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

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Leg of pork
Forms the main body of the dish and carries the stuffing while it cooks.
Bread crumbs
Absorb juices from the onions, apple and butter, keeping the stuffing moist and soft.
Butter
Adds fat that enriches the stuffing and helps it brown and taste rich.
Egg yolk
Binds the stuffing ingredients together so they hold their shape when sliced.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma to the stuffing, with a sharper flavor if left raw.

The step that matters

Basting the pork while it bakes. Regular basting keeps the surface moist and helps the skin brown. Stopping basting before the final sprinkling lets the savoury powder crisp rather than wash off.

Swap the apple

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

  1. Lemonfits better
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Applethe original
  4. Limefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, onion, bread, sage, butter, 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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