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Blade Bone of Pork

Roasted pork blade bone served on mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Pepper and sage 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 ↓

Blade Bone 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

  1. Preheat oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. Season the blade bone of pork with pepper, coarse sea salt, and chopped sage.

Roast and serve

  1. Roast or broil the pork for about 30 minutes, basting it two or three times.

  2. Serve the blade bone on a bed of mashed potatoes.

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. Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,388 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Pork + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

  3. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Sage + potatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together386 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. 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

What each ingredient does

Blade bone of pork
Forms the main cut of meat, cooking through while its fat and juices keep it moist.
Sage
Adds a savory, aromatic flavor that complements the rich pork.
Mashed potatoes
Provides a soft, starchy bed that soaks up meat juices and rounds out the plate.

The step that matters

Basting during roasting. Spooning pan juices over the pork two or three times during roasting keeps the surface from drying out and helps build a flavorful, browned exterior.

Swap the sage

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, potato. 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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